Escapees From The Plot Bunny Farm
by Lampito
Summary: Plot bunnies are strange creatures; who knows where they come from? Well, presumably when a mummy plot bunny and a daddy plot bunny get together and get married they make little plot bunnies... there will always be more plot bunnies than there are stories, but we can have a red hot go at stomping them anyway. A series of one-shots.
1. The Nature Of Plot Bunnies

_**What's going on here?**_

Well, the Jimiverse Plot Bunny pen is empty. Completely empty. There's nothing there - one little bastard gave me a title, and a very vague idea, then dashed off under the shelves in the study, and I cannot get the little mongrel out.

So, what's a fickriter to do?

Either turn to, or cower from, the Denizens...

One of the reviews for 'Child's Play' posed a suggestion so, well, non-sequitur, I suppose, that I wondered how the hell you could do it:

**Muffins and Pie** wrote:

_But ai digress I have a challang for u, one I believe you could do magic with. Combine Rj's first sleep over, Mermaids, and a character that I wish was really on the show The world crankest werewolf who's name I can not spell :(_

(Remember, not all of us here on FFN have English as our first language, so let's not get nasty about a bit of mis-spelling.)

So, RJ has a sleepover + mermaid + Ronnie, the World's Crankiest Werewolf = one-shot.

WTF?

I want some of whatever Muffins and Pie is smoking.

And then I thought, well, maybe listening to this mutant plot bunny will encourage the other plot bunny to come out...

And then I thought, why don't I ask the Denizens for their mutant plot bunnies? They're always doing it anyway, there's always things they want to know about, bits of info they want filled in (I curse my throwaway lines), Winchester clothing they want torn off...

Plot bunnies breed plot bunnies. It's basic biology.

So, at the risk of encouraging depravity where it always exists in spades already, I have decided to do two things:

1) Write a Jimiverse story for Muffins and Pie and her two-headed Tasmanian plot bunny, and

2) Against all common sense, encourage The Denizens (or any Jimiverse Lurkers, Visitors or Droppers-In) to add their own prompts.

Is there anything you wanted filled in? For example, in 'Child's Play', what was Sam knitting? What did Castiel and Gabriel have a shouting match about? And exactly what did happen in Nevada, when Dean spent a night with a lady calling herself Mistress Amanda?

No. No, I don't think I could do that one. There are websites and Tumblr accounts for That Sort Of Thing...

Anyway, I'm hoping that writing some one-shots (they'll mostly be the loony crack that we've come to expect from the Jimiverse, unless somebody has a desperate yen to see what I can do with some other genre (besides slash) but I make no promises will encourage any proto-bunnies to mature into adult plot bunnies.

Any requests for Crobby will make my head explode, and that will be the end of me and the Jimiverse.

So, send me your prompts! The loonier the better! Selected prompt authors will get kudos and acknowledgement. I'll tackle the ones that jump up and bite me, but I cannot promise to deal with them all, and some bunnies are just too shy, but I'll give it they ol' college try.

Anyway, let's go have a look at that sleepover...


	2. Sleepovers Mermaids & Werewolves Oh My

**Prompt from Muffins and Pie:**

_But ai digress I have a challang for u, one I believe you could do magic with. Combine Rj's first sleep over, Mermaids, and a character that I wish was really on the show The world crankest werewolf who's name I can not spell :(_

* * *

**Sleepovers, Mermaids and Werewolves, Oh My...**

Bobby wasn't sure exactly how much pizza five nine-year-olds would eat, so he decided to over-cater, and put any leftovers in the fridge, because the adult Winchesters were expected back – Dean always made sure he was back for RJ's birthday – and they were to pizza as an insinkerator was to potato peelings. Besides, given how busy they'd been for the day, they had to be hungry.

They'd had a go at shooting cans off the fence with an elderly .22, under Bobby's stern tuition. They'd played with the six-week old puppies that were the last litter Lemmy had sired off Rosie, whilst venerable Rumsfeld kept watch over them as well. (Ronnie had narrowed her eyes, and later suggested that Bobby keep a careful eye on the pups, because she had a sneaking suspicion that one of them was on the brink of Choosing RJ). Then, they'd headed down to the stream at the bottom of his place, and spent some time re-engineering the earth dam that Dean and Sam had made nearly forty years earlier, getting thoroughly wet and not caring at all. After that, they'd found an ancient pogo stick, and had boinged around on it until like demented kangaroos until the rain had started, then they'd retired to one of Bobby's sheds, where Ronnie had taught them the basics of soldering, and they'd spent some time making things for their mothers out of bits of wire and pieces of broken tail light lenses.

He'd left them to their own devices in the living room to enjoy their dinner without adult interference, and retired to the kitchen, where Ronnie was eating a leftover piece of the lunchtime birthday cake.

"What I wanna know," sighed Bobby, sinking into a chair, "Is where the hell they get the energy from."

"Apparently, they're powered by chocolate cake," answered Ronnie. "That thing was the size of a truck battery, and they ate most of it."

"I did notice that you helped," he reminded her.

"I don't help with a sleep-over for free, Singer," she sniffed disdainfully, "Even if one of the kids is mine. I demand payment. And since you didn't have any TimTams lying around, chocolate cake is it."

"I do appreciate it," Bobby told her, "And if I ever meet your grandmother in The Great Hereafter, I will make a point of thankin' her for making sure you knew how to bake a mean chocolate cake. And it makes their mothers happier if they think another mother will be here to do the supervisin', so they don't have to leave their precious little darlings with that old drunk, Singer."

"Will Dean make it back?" she asked quietly.

"He always has," Bobby reminded her, "Makes a point of bein' here for his boy's birthday. He wanted to be here today, but, well, the kid's got a sense of responsibility a mile wide, and this thing, whatever it is, it's targeting kids…"

"Yeah, 'Saving people, Hunting things, the family business'," she murmured. A roar of laughter suggested that somebody had told a joke that their parents would not approve of. "How are we not dead, Bobby?" she asked, "How the hell are we here, almost like normal people, with our kids running around like hamsters on speed, cleaning up after a frigging birthday party, not dead?"

"Just lucky, I guess," he replied smugly. "Me, I'm just doin' it to piss God off, and He knows, I'm just returning the favour. Mind you, Himself might have the last laugh, on this occasion." He winced and stretched his arms out. "I'm gettin' too old for this sort o' thing."

Ronnie cut him a piece of cake, and pushed it towards him. Bobby wasn't fooling anybody. Wild werewolves wouldn't drag it out of him, but she was pretty sure that he'd had just as much fun supervising as the guests of RJ's birthday sleepover had enjoyed just being nine year old boys.

"Maybe, having worn themselves out, they'll sleep well tonight," she suggested.

"Huh, shows how much you know," griped Bobby, "They'll be up until zero dark hundred, playin' hide and seek in the house, and then tryin' to scare each other with horror stories, then they'll be down here raidin' the refrigerator in the middle of the night, and generally raisin' the sort of hell that only boys can do."

"Well, hopefully, Dean will be back by then, and we can turn them over to him," she smiled a little nastily, contemplating the satisfaction to be had by giving responsibility for a tornado of kids to someone else. The laughter roared again. "What the hell are they doing in there?"

"Probably best we don't know," Bobby cautioned, "Trust me. I was a nine-year-old boy once."

"Sometime last century," she snorted.

"Like you're gettin' any younger," he chuckled back. "You know you're goin' grey, right?"

"At least I've still got my hair to go grey."

"Asshat."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

"Your grandpa is seriously cool, RJ," stated his school friend Karl. "My grandpa won't let me shoot at his place. Did he teach you?"

"My Dad taught me," RJ answered, "That rifle was the first one I learned on."

"Aha!" exclaimed Paul, "That's why you're such a good shot with it!"

"Did Mr Winchester teach you too, Connor?" asked Takumi.

"My Mom taught me," shrugged Connor. "And my little sister."

"She's a better shot than you," sniggered RJ, but not too unkindly.

"My Mom wouldn't let me do stuff like today for my birthday," complained Paul, "She wouldn't let me do stuff like this at all, at home." Despite being the bookworm of the group, Paul had produced an intricate piece of soldered work with a floral motif, inlaid with pieces of amber plastic, for his mother. "Hey, Connor, where did your mom learn about soldering and stuff? My mom does _quilts_." He grimaced, possibly at the thought of how mortifying it would be like if he had some friends over and it started to rain and his mother herded them into a shed to teach them quilting.

"She's a welder," Connor said, a hint of pride in his voice, "And Dad says she's real good. Uncle Dean says she's real good, too, only he won't say it to her."

"He calls her 'That Shepherd Woman'," RJ revealed, "And they're seriously rude to each other. He says, 'That Shepherd Woman has her head so far up her own ass she can't see daylight!"

The boys all laughed.

"And my Mom says," Connor grinned hugely, and dropped his voice into a perfect north Australian accent, "My Mom says, 'Dean Winchester is such a pretty boy, his face is prettier than mine, his ass is prettier than mine, but, but, but, at least my dick is bigger than his!"

They roared with hilarity at that.

"How come he doesn't punch her for that?" wondered Takumi.

"Because you don't hit girls," declared Karl loftily. "Not even if they hit you."

"They're really friends," RJ informed them.

"They just try to make everybody believe that they're not," Connor nodded. "They're _so_ not convincing."

"You're real lucky to live here, with your grandpa," sighed Paul. "Although your Dad's car is cooler than your grandpa's."

"RJ's Dad's car is cooler than everybody's," declared Connor, and they all hummed in agreement.

"My Mom wouldn't let me have a sleepover," Takumi humphed. "She says I'm not old enough. I'm nine years old! I had to get my Dad on my side to convince her to let me come to yours, RJ."

"My Mom wanted me to have a theme party," Karl admitted glumly. "Which would be okay if you had a cowboy party, or something, but she wanted it to be a… a…."

"A what?" enquired RJ.

"A Peter Pan party," Karl breathed in shamefaced horror. "So she could dress up as Tinkerbell."

The other boys paused. Karl's mother was a woman who obviously enjoyed her food and loathed exercise. In order to produce enough fake satin and tutu netting for her to make a Tinkerbell costume, a large synthetics manufacturer would have to drop all other contracts for at least six weeks.

"She'd need… really big wings," was all Paul could say. "My Mom wanted me to have a clown party," he offered by way of commiseration. "With a clown. And making clown hats. And face-painting."

They all shuddered in sympathy. Sometimes, grown-ups seriously had no idea.

By the time they'd finished their pizza, and then eaten more chocolate cake, it was dark outside, so outdoor activities were not an option.

"So, what'll we do now?" wondered Takumi.

"We could watch a movie," suggested RJ, "Although Grandpa Bobby won't let us watch Evil Dead – I had to steal it and watch it under the covers one night."

"We could look at some of Mr Singer's books," suggested Paul, adjusting his glasses and gazing longingly at the untidy shelves with the same hungry expression Sam had worn thirty years earlier.

"We don't wanna look at books," declared Karl, who was even at this early age clearly destined to spend more time on the football field than in the library once he hit college, "You don't go to a sleepover to look at books!"

"But these books look really different," Paul persisted, tilting his head to read a spine.

"Grandpa Bobby collects rare and unusual and antique and es-o-te-ric books," RJ lied smoothly, pronouncing the last adjective carefully. "Lots of 'em are really old, or really valuable, so you can't touch 'em without asking."

"Can we ask, then?" Paul looked hopeful.

"I guess," shrugged Connor. "Uncle Bobby!" he bellowed.

"Lower your voice to a dull roar, ya idjit," growled Bobby, coming into the living room, "We're all on the same planet. What is it?"

"Are there some books we could look at?" asked RJ, tilting his head at Paul, who was watching Bobby with the sort of expression the old man usually saw on his dogs when they were trying to cadge bacon from him.

"Hmmmm, well, some of the ones out here might be okay," he hemmed to himself, "But a lot o' my books, they're old, and delicate, so let me pick some out for you…"

He selected a number of tomes that he thought might keep a group of nine-year-olds interested for a short time, and put them on the table.

"Okay, these ones, you can look at," he stipulated, "They're about where monster stories come from, which means they're about stuff that's pretty damned imaginitive, but not real. Now, don't mark 'em, and don't get your drinks or your snacks on 'em, are we clear?"

"Yes, Mr Singer," they chorused dutifully. With a gruff nod, he left them to it.

Karl's grumbling about books soon stopped as he opened one, and immediately found a garish picture. "Hey, guys, look at that!" he turned the book around, "How cool is that?"

"It's a Tengu demon," read Paul, "It's Japanese."

"It's cutting that guy's head off," Karl grinned.

"That's Sojobo-sama, Lord of the Tengu," Takumi, "He taught swordsmanship, and ate little boys who got lost in the forest, but that's just a story people told to scare kids into behaving."

"Look at this one!" Paul turned a book around, "Vampires!"

"Vampires don't look like that!" tutted Connor in disbelief. "I mean," he went on hurriedly, "That's Dracula. He's the only one who looks like that. Because he's, like, the boss vampire."

"That outfit doesn't look very practical," decided Paul, "Wouldn't it be awkward to get around all dressed up like that?"

"He's a bad guy," Karl reminded him, "Bad guys wear cloaks. To swirl around dramatically." He pulled a blanket from the sofa, and wrapped it around himself. "Good efening," he intoned, "I vant to bite your neck."

"Oh, gross!" Takumi screwed up his face. "How do I kill a vampire?"

"Says here, you hammer a stake through its heart," read Paul.

Takumi perused the table, and selected the longest cheese stick from the snacks. "Die, you undead monster!" he declared, waving the cheese stick and making stabbing motions in Karl's direction.

"Eeerrrrgh! Aaaaaaargh!" warbled Karl in horror.

"Kill the vampire!" declared RJ, grabbing another cheese stick.

The noise of the rassling heap brought Bobby to investigate.

"What are you idjits doin' in here, killin' each other?" he roared over the noise.

"It's okay Mr Singer," Takumi assured him, "We're just killing a vampire."

"Aaaaaargh! Ooooooooogh!" went Karl the Undead Fiend by way of demonstration. Then he leaned forward, and bit the end off a cheese stick.

"This could take a while," RJ warned him, "He keeps eating our stakes."

"Well, just don't get any blood on the rug," Bobby instructed, trying to stifle his grin, "Very difficult to get out of carpet, vampire blood is."

"Hey, look at this one!" piped Paul, holding up the book, "A zombie! They eat people's brains! They stagger around, and go, 'Braaaaains, braaaaaains'." He demonstrated with a suitable zombie-like shuffle. "Braaaaaains…"

"I don't like brains," Karl grimaced, "My grandma tried to make me eat 'em, crumbed, but they're seriously disgusting."

"Well, zombies are undead monsters, too," Bobby pointed out, "So they like 'em."

"How do you kill zombies, then?" asked Takumi.

"I do hear tell," Bobby intoned seriously, "That they are allergic to… pickles…"

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

"What the hell are they doing in there?" asked Ronnie.

"Killin' the walkin' undead," grinned Bobby, glancing in the door at where the shrieking, laughing pile of boys were dealing with their monster, "It appears that savoury pastries work on bloodsuckers. And pickles work on zombies. Who knew?"

"I'll remember that next time I have to deal with either of 'em," nodded Ronnie, "Should make a Hunt a lot more tasty, if nothing else."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

The sleepover contingent found some more monsters that were garishly illustrated by people who had active imaginations but no experience with Hunting; it was all RJ and Connor could do to keep their faces straight at some of the outlandish pictures.

The group found, acted out, and 'killed off' a mummy (Takumi wrapped in the sofa throw), a werewolf (Connor with a fringed cushion cover on his head), a yeti (Karl with the throw and the cushion cover) and then zombies again (because if a zombie steals your pickle, that turns you into a zombie too).

"My Mom would never let me stand on the sofa," grinned Karl. "What else is there?"

"Hey, look, here's a mermaid," Paul pointed out. The others groaned.

"A mermaid's no good," Karl complained, "They just sit around, and brush their hair."

"Besides, mermaids are girls," pronounced Connor, implying that they were therefore not so much monsters as complete aliens.

"Boy mermaids are called mermen," Paul informed them, reading, "Mermaids cause shipwrecks, and lure sailors, and eat them."

"What? Her?" scoffed RJ, gesturing derisively at a picture that was more Ariel the Little Mermaid than cold calculating predator of the deep. "She couldn't wreck a ship! The worst she could do would be break a nail, or something."

"It's probably the mermen who wreck the ships," suggested Takumi, "While the mermaids brush their hair."

"Typical," humphed Kar. "So what do mermen look like?"

"There's no picture here," Paul said, flipping through the pages. "I guess they're like a man on top, and a fish tail instead of legs."

"They can't look like that," Karl wasn't convinced, "That'd be seriously sissy. She looks like half a goldfish!"

"Maybe they have, like, shark tails, instead," suggested Connor. "That'd be seriously cool."

"They could go faster, too," RJ added, "With a shark tail."

"You don't know that," countered Paul. "Anyway, a shark's tail goes from side to side. This tail," he pointed to the picture, "Goes up and down. Like a dolphin."

"Sharks are bigger," Takumi pointed out.

"We need to look this up," Paul said firmly.

"We need to work this out," RJ said.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

When Bobby next returned to the living room, three boys were clustered on the sofa while Karl was prone on the floor, waggling both his legs from side to side together, while Connor did a dolphin-kick. They were in animated discussion as they watched the two on the floor.

"Is this some sort of dance that sad old out-of-date men like me haven't heard of yet?" he asked, intrigued.

"We're trying to find out what goes faster, a dolphin or a shark," Paul replied, not looking up.

"So we can work out what sort of tails mermen have," explained Karl.

"So they can wreck ships," added Takumi.

"While the mermaids brush their hair, and sing," Connor's lip curled in distaste.

Bobby frowned thoughtfully. "That's a very interestin' question," he nodded seriously.

"I think we should look up sharks and dolphins and their swimming," Paul reiterated.

"My laptop's upstairs," RJ said, getting off the sofa, "Come on."

"Do you know anything about sharks and dolphins and mermen, Mr Singer?" asked Takumi.

" 'Fraid not," Bobby replied regretfully, "But it's an interestin' question. I'd be very interested to hear your conclusions," he told them, handing over the snacks plate. "Keep me informed as to what results your research turns up. And don't grind that stuff into the carpet."

"Yes, Mr Singer," they chorused as they headed upstairs.

"Now what?" asked Ronnie, mystified, as Bobby bit his lip in the effort not to laugh out loud.

"They're doin' research on how mermen would swim," he wheezed, "Like a dolphin or like a shark."

She snorted with suppressed laughter. "Where the hell do they get these ideas from?"

"Only a kid's brain," Bobby chuckled.

"Well, it's gotta be healthier than sitting in front of a computer game," Ronnie sighed philosophically.

"Definitely," Bobby agreed, "So I told 'em to get on with it. It's keeping 'em occupied, and, well, you can't get into much mischief swimmin' on the carpet."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

Progress on Project Merman was slow. The general answer on the web pages they consulted as to which could swim faster was: It Depends.

"If you were a merman, you could use your arms too," Takumi pointed out.

"No, hold on," frowned Paul, with a rudimentary insight into aquadynamics that he couldn't clearly articulate, "Waving your arms around underwater will slow you down." He lay across RJ's bed to demonstrate. "Your arms will have to push through the water forwards, for you to bring them backwards."

"You could do, like, a swimming thing," Karl demonstrated a breaststroke movement.

"While the rest of you is going side to side?" Connor didn't sound convinced. "Or up and down."

They tried several permutations and combinations of tail-swimming and arm strokes, but made no more progress.

"This is no good," Paul sighed, "We can't figure this out just waggling our legs around."

"That's exactly what I was thinking," agreed RJ, with a thoughtful look on his face. His eyes strayed to the hallway beyond his room's door, and the other doors out there. "But I have an idea."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

More than ten years previously, there had been an unfortunate incident in which Castiel, Angel of the Lord and Warrior of Heaven, had tried to take over his Father's job. He had done this by breaking into Purgatory, and 'swallowing' a lot of souls, amongst them, the Leviathans imprisoned there. However, godhood had not been as straightforward as he had hoped – his efforts to write a simple list of Ten Commandments had ended up with more clauses, sub-clauses, footnotes and qualifications than the most detailed legal document – and the episode ended when he suffered a truly spectacular bout of diabolo-celestial gastrointestinal distress, which culminated in the rehabilitation of Godstiel back to plain old Castiel, at the expense of blowing up Bobby's house, from the toilet outwards.

It had given Bobby a chance to rebuild Casa Singer, a bit bigger, a bit better, and with a few additional features (although Dean did not get his fireman's pole down to a garage underneath the room he shared with Sam, and Sam did not get his solar powered greenhouse for growing organic salad greens). For a start, the Winchesters got an en suite, so he didn't have to yell at them to hurry up in the bathroom or leave some hot water for him. He'd also treated himself to the installation of a large spa bath in the main bathroom, which he found he really appreciated in his seventies after the arthritis fairy visited. It was a marvel of modern plumbing, it really was, with adjustable jets, and variable pump speeds. Sometimes Sam liked to read in there. And Dean, well, he didn't like to think too hard about what Dean liked doing in there…

The muted hum of the pump starting up was just audible downstairs, where Bobby and Ronnie were clearing up the last of the party's detritus. Bobby looked up and chuckled.

"Heh heh," he grinned, "I mighta guessed they'd find the bath."

Ronnie checked her watch. "Probably figured that they should get ready for bed before they're told," she guessed. "I bet Paul was the one who said they should do that."

"We'll end up shovelin' bubbles off the floor," Bobby warned her, "There was this time, once, when RJ was about two years old, and he wanted bubble bath, so Dean poured Sam's shower wash in there, and started it up, and when I finally went to investigate, there they are, with RJ sittin' on the vanity, laughin' his head off, while Dean is sculptin' a castle in foam about three feet high…"

"Well, a sleepover is supposed to be fun," she smiled at him. "Maybe we can take their sleeping bags upstairs for them."

"And do tooth brushin' inspection," Bobby added, "Although they'll be snackin' all night, so I don't know why we'd bother."

"So I can look their mothers in the eye tomorrow, and tell them we did," Ronnie reminded him.

She headed out to the back room where RJ's three school friends had dumped their overnight bags and sleeping gear, while Bobby went to fetch the pump for the air mattresses.

"That's weird," she commented when they met at the bottom of the stairs, "Their bags are still there."

"If I find out that somebody has organized some sort o' streakin' contest, I will not be amused," frowned Bobby. "We'd better check on 'em."

A sudden cheer sounded from upstairs.

"Right now," he added.

They headed up the stairs.

About half way up, the carpet squelched.

"Oh, balls."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

"Go Connor!" cheered Karl, as Connor thrashed determinedly up and down, eyes squinted against the spray from the jets running at full power and the taps going full blast.

"That's really getting up some splash!" declared Takumi.

"He is splashing the most so far," agreed Paul, eyeing the height of the waves in the tub critically, "But he's going up and down. I think you might have actually displaced more water, RJ…"

Reluctantly, Connor clambered out of the tub, and RJ got back in. He began to thrash from side to side determinedly.

"Swim, RJ, swim!" they cheered, as the youngest Winchester did his best merman impression.

"Now try with your arms!" instructed Paul, as RJ obliged.

Which is how Ronnie found them when she burst in through the door ahead of Bobby.

Some time later she would remind Dean of the scene, five boys in their shorts, dripping wet, four cheering madly while his son splashed around like a man possessed. "The way he was thrashing about, I thought there must be a hairdryer in there with him," she laughed, "I wish I'd at least had the presence of mind to throw a load of laundry in with him."

As it was , she let out a roar, and bellowed in an accent so broad that they could barely understand her:

"ROBERT JOHN WINCHESTER WHAT THE BLOODY HELL D'YA THINK YER PLAYIN' AT?"

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

"Your Mom is seriously scary," murmured Karl, wringing out his towel into the bucket.

"You don't know the half of it," Connor grumbled, doing likewise.

"Her teeth looked real big in the bathroom light," commented Takumi.

"I don't think she's very happy with us," sighed Paul. "You know, I could've sworn that she growled at us…"

"Dad says that Auntie Ronnie is the world's crankiest… person," RJ informed them.

"So does my Dad," confirmed Connor.

"Why did they get married, then?" asked Paul.

Connor considered the question. "Mom says, the pretty ones fainted at the sight of her, and the smart ones saw her coming," he answered, "And Dad says she's a really good cook, and he couldn't let that go."

"They probably just wanted to do sex," grinned RJ.

"You don't have to get married to do sex," scoffed Karl, "My big brother does it, and he's not married."

"And Uncle Sammy says that Uncle Dean does it all the time," Connor added, "But he also says, he's seriously going to Hell."

"What, for doing sex?" asked Takumi.

"For doing everything, I think," replied Connor.

A low growl travelled to them through the stairs, but when they whipped around, there was just Ms Shepherd standing there, with the sort of expression that RJ was more used to seeing on his Uncle Sammy's face.

"How are we doing here?" she asked.

"Uh, I think it's about as dry as it's going to get, Ms Shepherd," Paul ventured. They all nodded.

She relented. "Okay, then, well, maybe you should all go and get ready for bed. You probably don't need to shower, given that you've all thrashed around in enough water to wash a bloody hippopotamus. Go on."

They dropped their towels in the buckets, and headed up the stairs, but as they did so, the rumble of a large engine pulling into the yard sounded in the darkness outside.

"Dad!" yelled RJ, dropping his towel and running for the door, "Dad's home!"

He tore outside, and barely waited for his father to get out of the car before he was upon him. "Dad!"

"Hey there, Tiger!" Dean smiled, and grabbed his son up, "Happy Birthday, dude!"

"You get the job done?" asked RJ. "Uncle Sammy, are you okay?"

"I sure am," confirmed Sam, getting out of shotgun and heading for the trunk.

"So, how's your sleepover going?" Dean asked, "You guys been having fun today?"

"Uh, yeah," RJ replied, "But we've had a bit of a hitch tonight."

"A hitch?" Dean quirked an eyebrow. "What sort of a hitch?"

RJ sighed heavily. "I think I oughta warn you," he began ominously, "That Auntie Ronnie is really, really seriously cranky."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

"Mermen!" Bobby shook his head and chuckled, pouring Dean another drink. "They were tryin' to work out what sort of tail would be better for a merman, a dolphin tail or a shark tail."

"And they decided to use the tub upstairs for their test tank," Ronnie rolled her eyes.

"That would explain why the stairs were damp," nodded Sam. "What the hell prompted them to wonder about merpeople? They don't even exist!"

"I gave 'em some harmless monster books to look at," shrugged Bobby, "And I guess nine year old imaginations took over."

"Oh, God, Bobby, I'm sorry," moaned Dean.

"Stairs'll dry," the old Hunter shrugged, "And they've finally managed to tire themselves out." Their eyes all rolled upwards – it was blissfully quiet upstairs, where the researchers had finally fallen asleep.

"They've managed to tire me out, too," Ronnie yawned. "How come I got to be the mean parent, and you got to be the nice one, Bobby?"

"Because I'm dear, dodderin' old Grandpa Bobby," he beamed, "And spoilin' kids rotten is what grandparents do."

"You didn't spoil us," humphed Dean.

"You weren't grandchildren," Bobby stated, "And grandchildren, they're your revenge on your kids."

"I'll check on 'em before I turn in," Ronnie said, standing up and yawning again, "If they decide to investigate the possibility of improvising explosive devices from household cleaning products during the night, you're on your own."

"You two should turn in as well," Bobby gruffed, "You look dead on your feet. Go on, I just gotta go check round the place."

"Thanks, Bobby," Dean said before following his brother, "This meant a lot to RJ."

"Don't thank me yet," Bobby sniffed, "You can oversee the horde tomorrow before pick-up time."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

He headed out once he was certain that the rest of the house was asleep.

With a torch and a certain amount of swearing, Bobby carefully picked his way through the dark to the stream at the bottom of the yard, with old Rumsfeld trotting stiffly but loyally at his side. He made his way to the swimming hole, and picked his way carefully to the water's edge.

"Ethyl!" he called as loudly as he dared, "Ethyl, you there?"

A small bow wave glided across the still water. When it was a stone's throw from the land, a head broke the surface.

"Singer Bobby!" smiled the pale female face, "It has been many tides since you came to speak to me, Singer Bobby."

"Yeah, well, it's gettin' harder," he apologized, "On account of more people bein' around. We gotta keep you safe."

She nodded at his concern.

"The thing is, Ethyl," he went on, "You know I've had a bunch of youngsters here today…"

"I saw the young," she smiled, "They played. They were happy. You were happy."

"Yeah, well, they've been amusin' themselves at the expense of my floors…"

He explained what had happened, and she laughed, shaking her head at the fancies of the young.

"It was not me, Singer Bobby," she assured him, "I would never show myself to walkers. You know that."

"I didn't think you would," he told her, "But I had to ask. I don't mind you vacationing down here, but, well, you know it's just better for everybody if nobody knows you're here. Or that you exist."

"Yes," she agreed, the single word carrying the import of what he said.

"Well, you enjoy yourself," he told her, "The kid goes back to school in a couple of days, and the idjits will be off on another Hunt, so maybe I can sneak down here again to chew the fat."

"I would enjoy that," she smiled. "Goodnight, Singer Bobby. Rest well."

"Night, Ethyl. Oh," he turned back, "There was one thing, maybe you could clear up for me…"

She laughed at his question, then flipped her own tail out of the water by way of demonstration. He thanked her, then headed back to the house.

Maybe he couldn't tell they boys – one day, he might tell RJ, he mused – but at least he wouldn't be awake all night wondering about merman anatomy.

* * *

So, whaddyareckon? Is this little exercise a goer?

Review and then prompt  
'Til the bunnies are stompt!


	3. Ways And Means

**Prompt from Georgia:**

_A prompt you say? Yes, what was Sam knitting?_

* * *

**Ways And Means**

It began so innocuously that, initially, Dean barely noticed.

Dean was determined to be a good dad to RJ, which meant staying put for a while. From the very beginning, he was adamant that, while they were under Bobby's feet, the Winchesters would not be freeloaders at Singer Salvage, and Sam was completely in agreement with him. They knew that Bobby would pick up the tab for any of them, without being asked, and that only made them more determined to earn their own keep.

And there _were_ expenses. To start with, there were the things that were really needed: formula and baby food, diapers, teething gel, the daily necessities of raising his son. And as RJ grew, that included new clothes. Dean became aware of why, as a child himself, he had ended up stealing food for Sam. Sam just remarked tartly that if their Dad hadn't spent so much on booze there would've been more money for baby food, but it was an old argument, and they left it buried.

So Dean spent his time in the yard, coaxing old junkers back to saleable life, removing and sorting and reconditioning components from the ones that could not be coaxed, and doing the odd repair job for one of Bobby's customers. Strangely enough, once word got around that Singer's nephew was working for him, Bobby found he was taking more calls from women wanting their cars looked at.

Sam helped Bobby with fielding queries from Hunters across the country, and picked up some Latin translation and correction work, which he could do online. He did a lot of this with RJ sitting in his lap, watching in fascination at the moving shapes on the screen, as Uncle Sammy read various documents and assignments to him in Cicero's tongue.

Sam doted on RJ nearly as much as Dean did, and with his penchant for making lists and organising things, Dean found that, between them, RJ never lacked anything; if he didn't remember that they needed to get more diapers, Sam did, and just bought them.

Then, there were the other items, the non-necessities, which appeared: toys, including a relative of Oinker Stoinker that floated in the bath, and also blew bubbles. And the sleep sacks, which saved a lot of messing around with bedding in the crib. And the baby carrier, which RJ loved, peering out at the world and waving his arms in excitement at everything around him, secure with the presence of his Dad right behind him.

And then, there was the play pen.

A run of unseasonably clear weather saw Sam head into town on a mysterious errand – and there had been a few of those, Dean noted – then return with a large flat pack. Dean paused over the car he was working on, and gave his brother a sour look.

"If you've bought yourself a deck chair, and you intend to set it up there and watch me work, I will end you, bitch," he threatened.

"Totally wrong, as usual," grinned Sam, cutting open the box. He then proceeded to set up the play pen. "Ta-dah!"

Dean stared at it. "Sam, what the hell is that?"

"It's a play pen!" chirped Sam, as Bobby appeared carrying RJ. "It's so that RJ can spend some time with you, while you work," he went on, spreading out a play mat on the ground.  
"He can sit here and watch you. Or if he's inside, he can move around more while Bobby and I are busy."

Bobby put RJ, the boy's favourite wrench, and a couple of toys down inside it. "That's gotta be the cutest zoo exhibit I've ever seen," he grinned, pulling up a crate as a seat. "So, now I can watch him watchin' you."

RJ seemed to find the whole thing hilarious. He crawled from one side to the other, shrieked happily, then began to wave his wrench, grinning and babbling. After a moment, Lemmy pulled his Hellhound-blood walk-through-solid-objects trick, and joined RJ.

"That's..." began Dean, eyeing his son's newest accessory.

"Brilliant?" grinned Sam. "Clever? A great way for your son to spend more time with you? Dare I say, awesome?"

"Well, yeah," Dean scratched his head, "What I was getting at, Sam, was that it, well, it looks expensive."

It did. It wasn't just a small, square playpen like the one Dean had known as a baby: it was huge. It was two hexagonal shapes together, with a shade at one end, puzzles and beads and noisemakers set in the bars – it was a Taj Mahal of play pens.

"Hey, he deserves it," Sam brushed off the worry Dean voiced, "He loves to be around you. And you love being around him, bro, I've seen the two of you together."

"Well, yeah, of course," Dean assured his brother, "The thing is, I don't like to use the credit cards in Sioux Falls – don't shit in your own nest..."

"Oh, I bought this," Sam said breezily.

"What with?" asked Dean, mystified.

Sam rolled his eyes. "Money," he replied. "Hard currency. Legal tender. You know the stuff, you gamble with it."

Dean's face became alarmed. "Sam, I don't like you hustling by yourself with no back-up, and I don't like doing it in Sioux Falls for the same reason, we don't want to make any sort of trouble for Bobby..."

"Dean," Sam gave his brother a smart Bitchface #9™ (I Know What I'm Doing, Jerk), "Number one, I'm perfectly capable of hustling by myself without my big brother, my bossy and short big brother, to hold my hand, number two, I didn't, I earned it, and number three, shut the hell up and enjoy being able to spend some more time with your kid!" As if to emphasise the point, RJ squeaked happily, and banged his wrench on one of the bead puzzles.

"Sorry, Sam," Dean smiled sheepishly, "Old habits die hard. Where you getting money from, anyway?"

"Ways and means," Sam grinned smugly, then headed back towards the house.

"This aint right," Dean confided to Bobby, "I'm supposed to look after him, not the other way around, he's my little brother."

"Who is a grown man, and a doting uncle, who wants to contribute to the upkeep of his family," Bobby told him sternly. "You think he'd enjoy you shovin' things down your pants for him?"

"Bobby, you kinky old devil," leered Dean.

"Metaphorically speakin', ya idjit," scowled Bobby. "My advice is to accept the contributions graciously and gratefully, with the minimum amount of snark possible under the Dean Winchester factory settings. You wanna treat somebody like a child, you got your own boy for that. So don't look a gift play pen in the mouth."

"Yeah, you're probably right," sighed Dean.

"Of course I'm right," humphed Bobby, "I'm a Man of Knowledge, and you are an idjit with a full blown pathological Big Brother Complex. Now, don't just stand there," he gestured imperiously. RJ copied him, and hooted, waving his wrench. "Entertain us! Hotcha hotcha hotcha!"

Dean shook his head, and turned his attention back to the engine he was working on. "What we got here, is pitting on one of the cam shafts," he told RJ, "I'll pull it out and show you – aint nothing we can do about it, it's a bad part that wasn't cast properly, but we can replace it, and this'll run good as new..."

He pushed his worries about Sam to the back of his mind, and got on with explaining the top end of a four-stroke engine to his son.

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

Under the premise of doing an online search for parts later that day, Dean surreptitiously did a search for the play pen, then the baby carrier, then the sleeping sacks, that Sam had purchased for RJ. He barely managed to suppress a squawk when he found the prices.

"Something wrong, bro?" Sam looked up from his own laptop.

"That's robbery!" Dean covered magnificently, spluttering in outrage, "What they're charging for a timing chain, I'd want the damned thing to be gold-plated for that sort of money!"

Sam smiled and shook his head. "Maybe you could collect box tops, or something," he grinned.

"If only," huffed Dean, as Sam stood up.

"Hey, can I take the car, bro?" he asked, "I won't be gone long, just got some errands to run."

"Yeah, sure," Dean replied, throwing the keys to Sam, "Rental is one piece of pie for every half hour, or part thereof. And if you scratch her, I will shave your frigging head."

"Jerk," Sam smiled as he left.

Sam was gone for a couple of hours, and like a good rental customer, he returned with pie for Dean.

"Apple and spice, bro," Sam told him, dropping the pie on the kitchen table. "That's gotta count as eight slices, so I get credit for another two hours sometime."

"It's six slices," Dean argued, "And for me, closer to four."

"But that's because when it comes to pie, you're a greedy asshole," Sam pointed out in an infuriatingly reasonable tone.

"What are these errands you keep running, anyway?" asked Dean in his best not-actually-terribly-interested voice, jiggling RJ as he tested the temperature of the bottle he was preparing.

"Ways and means, bro," was all Sam would say.

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

After that, Dean started keeping track of his brother's movements.

Sam ran his 'errands' at least three times a week. He also took calls on a phone that wasn't his usual phone, his other phone, his other other phone or his other other back-up phone. He also took care not to answer it within earshot of his big brother.

Initially, Dean held out hope that Sam was meeting up with a woman, and just didn't want him to find out. He'd leered at his brother, and asked 1) who she was, 2) was she any good and 3) was she a screamer, but instead of the blushing scowl he would've expected had his baby bro actually been getting laid, he got a tired sigh, and a dismissive-yet-futile plea to get his mind above his belt, so that was a bust.

He started finding excuses to come inside more often during the day: he wanted to spend time with RJ, he was hungry, he was thirsty, he cut his hand, he needed to look something up, it was so cold that his hands and his feet and his bad shoulder were seizing up...

"Did I just hear Dean Winchester, Dean 'It's Just A Flesh Wound' Winchester, Dean 'Painkillers Are For Pussies' Winchester, Dean 'Just Put My Shoulder Back In And Sew My Arm Back On So I Can Go Gank This Thing' Winchester, that Dean Winchester, complain that his little tootsies are chilly?" He brandished knitting needles and yarn. "You want me to knit you some socks, bro?"

"It's all right for you, you hairy Sasquatch," Dean humphed, dropping heavily into the chair in front of the computer. "I think we're gonna have a white Christmas."

"We should find a tree before we get a freeze, then," Sam decided, getting up and dropping a giggling RJ into his father's lap. "A proper tree, for RJ's first Christmas. Here, hold your kid," he instructed, as RJ cooed contentedly and patted Dean's face. Dean blew a raspberry on his son's hand, and pulled faces at him until Sam had left the room.

As soon as his brother was gone, he stood up and practically leaped to the laptop. Sam was usually pretty conscientious about locking it when he walked away from it (years of having a big brother who'd lose his work, start writing porn in Latin in the middle of a document, put his details on hook-up websites or freeze it on Busty Asian Beauties had ingrained that sensible habit), but sometimes, if he had a lot of windows on the go at once, the screen lock could be slow...

A fraction of a second after he landed in front of it, the wallpaper kicked in, and he was looking at a picture of RJ, Lars and Lemmy curled together in a snoozing heap. But that had been enough for him to get a fleeting glimpse of the screen before it happened. It had been so quick that there wasn't time to really get a look at it, let alone see any details, but one line stood out just long enough for him to read it.

_Bruce the Moose_

Hearing his brother head back into the living room, he returned to his seat and continued frowning at the screen of the other computer. "Hey, where's mine?" he demanded, seeing the mug Sam was carrying.

"You can have this one, if you like," Sam smiled, "I'll make myself another chocolate."

"Freak," mumbled Dean. He made a show of looking for something while jiggling RJ on his knee, then ending up looking for one of the honey badger videos that his son loved to watch. He did the voiceover dialogue that the boy had come to expect...

"Hey, RJ, what's he eating? 'Get away from our hive, you thief, you vandal, you home wrecker!' Ah, I love me some home-made honey.' 'Why don't you go and tear somebody else's home apart, huh? Why don't you go and destroy a squirrel's home and raid his larder?' 'Well, duh, I'm a honey badger. Am I called an acorn badger? I don't think so, you buzzing bimbos'..."

"Dean, there are no oak trees in Africa, the climate is completely wrong."

Sam's not-even-his-other-other-back-up-phone chirped, and he checked a message, sending a brief reply.

"Hey, Dean, can I take the car?"

"You know the rate," Dean threw him the keys, "Maybe apricot or peach this time."

Sam rolled his eyes, and headed upstairs to get his jacket.

As soon as he heard his Baby start up, coughing in the cold, Dean headed to the study and plonked RJ into Bobby's lap.

"God's tits, ya idjit!" squawked Bobby as RJ jabbered hello, "Whaddya think your doin'?"

"SorryBobbygottago," he rattled off, grabbing his jacket and the keys to one of the clunkers he'd managed to save from the doom of the Great God Salvage.

Tailing Sam was cinch; Dean blended into the busy pre-Christmas traffic. He didn't have any trouble picking out and following his Baby into town – he would be able to find her in a snowstorm, let alone a parking lot. He watched Sam take his ever-present backpack, pull on his beanie, and head into the crowd.

For once, he was grateful for his little brother's height, because it made following him through the bustle of shoppers easier. He watched his little brother peer into some shop windows, but make his way purposefully along the street.

Dean stopped behind a bus stop to watch Sam pause in front of a building that he knew housed one of the more upmarket hotels in the area. His little brother looked around – was he waiting for something?...

A fifty-something woman, clearly well-dressed despite being rugged up against the cold, approached him. He turned, smiled and greeted her, then offered his arm, and they walked into the building together.

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

_Don't jump to conclusions_ had always been one of Dad's mantras, as well as Bobby's (and Sam's, come to think of it). Dean tried to quell his growing worry, and approach the matter like a job that had to be researched without the civilians working out what he was doing.

He watched Sam like a discreet hawk. He made sure he kept up the expected complaints when his little brother drafted him into helping to bring a tree inside, then made some mental calculations about the likely costs of all the new decorations that his brother brought home from one of his 'errands'.

"Where did all this come from, Sam?" he asked, picking up a skein of tinsel.

"You know that really creepy Christmas shop?" Sam replied, opening a packet of shiny ornaments, "The one across the road from the pizza place, with the owner who's got eyes that point in opposite directions, remember when we were kids one year you took me there to see Santa, and I got one look at the guy and started to scream the place down..."

"That's not what I meant," Dean cut him off, waving his arms around to take in the jumble of stuff on the floor. "I mean, all this, this stuff. You bought it."

"Well of course I bought it," Sam rolled his eyes. "I'd have looked pretty damned stupid trying to stuff a string of Christmas lights down my pants, and you can bet that Jody would never let me hear the end of it..."

"Sam!" Dean snapped. "That's not it," he went on less stridently, "You keep, you know, buying stuff. For RJ. You don't have to buy stuff..."

:Dean, I want to," Sam replied earnestly. "This is RJ's first Christmas. It should be a proper Christmas!"

"Well, yeah, sure," Dean agreed reluctantly, "But he's my kid, and..."

"Dean," Sam interrupted firmly, "When we were kids, with Dad, we never had a proper Christmas. If we were with Bobby, he did his best, but his priorities and attention were elsewhere. But you, you busted your ass every year, every damned year, to make sure that I got _some_ sort of Christmas, something just a little bit special, even if it was a crappy present you stole from a gas station, even if the tree was a dead branch in an ash bucket, and the decorations were made from gum wrappers, you gave me the best Christmas you could, even though you were just a kid yourself. I want this for RJ, and I want it for you, too." He turned to where RJ sat in his play pen, watching them, enthralled by the sparkles and glitter. "You keep him fed, and clothed, and you look after him. Let me do this for him. For both of you. Please." He then deployed the puppy-dog eyes, and Dean's resolve crumbled.

"All right, Francis," he humphed, "Go ask Santa for a chick-flick moment if that's what you're angling for. Gimme that tinsel."

RJ watched with rapt attention as his father and uncle bickered over the decoration of tree, squealing encouragement to all parties.

"No, Dean, just, no."

"Come on, Sam, you gotta have a tree topper, and we don't have a star or anything..."

"I got that under control."

"Whatever it is, it can't possibly be as cool as this..."

"Dean, we are not having a cutout of Miss October 2009 on top of the tree!"

"Spoilsport."

That was when he heard Sam's newest phone trill.

He opened a packet of what turned out to be liqueur chocolate ornaments ("Dean, you're supposed to hang those on the tree!") and begrudgingly began to hang them carefully, considering each placement like the most fastidious feng shui practitioner, while Sam took a call, and wandered out of the room. Dean silently made his way to the doorway, and managed to catch snatches of Sam's end of the conversation in the hall.

"Yeah, I'm Bruce. Yeah, I know... uh-huh..."

Dean's ears pricked up.

"Yeah, well, as you might guess, I'd rather keep it quiet from my family..."

Dean's eyebrows shot up.

"Uh-huh... well, that depends on what you want... no, I don't take credit cards..."

Dean's eyebrows shot up further.

"Yeah... yeah, I can do that... oh, no, I can promise you, size is not a problem..."

Dean bit hard on his lip to muffle the squeak, and staggered back to the tree, composing himself, looking for all the world like a man absorbed in the placement of chocolates on a Christmas tree.

"Hey, Dean, can I take the car?" asked Sam.

"I'm still awaiting payment from your last 'errands'," frowned Dean, throwing the keys, "I'm gonna start charging interest. A quarter of a pie-cent."

"Ha ha," Sam snorted as he headed out.

Dean spent that afternoon working on a recalcitrant engine; the turbo charger on the engine was seized solid, but the one powering his imagination was running at redline. However, being His Majesty Deanopatra, Queen of Denial, he told himself he needed more evidence.

The opportunity came later that evening while Sam was in the shower; Dean was just putting RJ into his crib when he noticed the newest phone sticking out of the pocket of his brother's jeans…

He only got as far as checking the messages – the opening lines were all kind of the same:

_Pamela: Request for quote_

_Justine: Request for quote_

_Kate: Request for quote_

_Denise: Request for quote_

And on it went.

He dropped the phone as if it had bitten him.

"What sort of a name is Bruce the Moose, anyway?" he whispered to RJ as he carefully replaced the phone. "It's a name for a, a, a wrestler, or a cage fighter, or a, a, a stripper, or a, a, a…"

He swallowed hard, then turned to admire the view of the pyramids as the royal barge drifted downstream.

"Hey, you okay, bro?" asked Sam, coming back into their room in his sleep sweats.

"Yeah, just tired," Dean managed a smile, and a huge yawn. "I've been wrestling with a turbo that don't want to play nice – who'da thought that it'd be so tiring?"

"Well, you got something else taking up your time and energy now, too," Sam jerked a thumb at RJ, who was wiggling contentedly towards sleep in his sleep sack. "Or maybe you're just getting older."

"And don't you forget it," Dean deliberately misunderstood the dig, "I will always, always, be your older brother, the oldest Winchester, and head of the family." He picked up his own sleep sweats to head for the bathroom. "Which means that I will always be here to look out for him," he indicated RJ, "And you."

"Yes, Mom," Sam snorted with amusement.

"I mean it, Sam," Dean went on seriously, "It's my job. So you don't need to worry about stuff, like, you know, money, for example…"

Sam gave his brother a 'WTF?' look. "Dean," he began in a concerned tone, "Are you feeling all right? Is something wrong?"

"What? No! No! No!" Dean yelped, "Absolutely not! We're here, at Bobby's, figuring out how to be a family of three rather than just two, and everything's okey-dokey, we got a roof over our head, and it's kinda strange that I'm makin' pretty good money from doin' stuff in the yard, and we don't have to resort to anything, uh, you know, to pay our way, you know…"

"Er, right," Sam said dubiously, eyeing his brother. "I think you probably need to get some rest, Dean. Maybe you should just spend some time with RJ tomorrow."

"Yeah, I'd like that," Dean replied brightly, "That'd be totally awesome. Maybe I could help you. With your, your know, ways and means."

"I doubt that," humphed Sam in an amused voice, heading for his own bed. "Don't leave the fan running in there when you're done."

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

After his early morning feed, RJ went back to sleep, so Dean went back to bed and napped, too. By the time he got up, and readied himself and his son to face the day, Sam was absent.

"Where's Sam?" he asked, heading into the kitchen where Bobby was pouring himself coffee.

"Headed off already," Bobby replied, "Don't worry, he didn't take your car."

"Where did he go?" Dean sounded anxious, even to himself.

"Said he had some errands to run," Bobby replied, frowning, "You feelin' all right, son?"

Dean tried to distract himself by playing with RJ, but his mind was elsewhere, waiting anxiously for the sound of Bobby's Chevelle heading back to the yard.

By the time RJ was taking his first nap, he finally heard the rumble of Sam returning. He rushed to the window, where he saw his brother picking up grocery bags from the trunk.

"Don't just stand there, jerk," grinned Sam when Dean met him at the door, "Gimme a hand here!"

"What is this, Sam?" Dean asked in his most anxious Worried Big Brother voice.

Sam didn't seem to notice. "This," his grin widened until his dimples showed, "Is Christmas lunch!"

Dean gawped at him. "Christmas lunch?" he echoed faintly.

"Yep!" Sam positively beamed. "Bobby even agreed to cook a turkey!" He hoisted an enormous frozen bird out of a bag. "I guess we better start thawing it in the refrigerator…"

"You bought Christmas lunch," Dean commented woodenly.

"The works, bro!" Sam was unstoppably cheerful. "All the trimmings! We got potatoes, we got sprouts, but you don't have to eat those at Christmas, we got these," he pulled out a packet, "Gourmet mince pies! Pies, Dean! Look, a whole packet for you!"

The list went on: Christmas cookies, cranberry stuffing, nuts, ham, pudding and brandy custard, a dozen types of vegetables…

"Aaaand," Sam brandished a bottle of very good brandy, "Your very favourite Christmas drink, eggnog! Well, lots of nog, hold the egg. No touching this until Christmas though, jerk," he tutted, "I'll hide it if I have to…"

"This is for Christmas," Dean said, "You bought all of this for Christmas."

"It's RJ's first one!" Sam reiterated, "This year, we really have something to celebrate, Dean! Come on, live a little – we can afford it, now."

"Can we, Sam?" Dean queried in a strangled tone. "Can we afford it? Can you afford it?"

"Well, yeah," Sam smiled in that way that made people wonder how a guy that big could look that shy, "I've been doing okay with…"

"With your ways and means?" Dean cut in sharply.

"Yeah," Sam's smile faltered in the face of Dean's pained expression. "Dean, please don't get weird over the whole I'm Your Big Brother I'm Supposed To Look After You thing, I owe you, bro, I will always owe you…"

"Not at this price, Sammy," Dean tried not to let his voice crack, "I know you want to do this for RJ, and for me, but not like this."

"What's goin' on in here?" demanded Bobby, making his way into the kitchen, "Why am I hearin' raised voices? Oho, shortbread!" He picked up a round tin. "I love this stuff! Wow, look at the size of that thing, we better get it thawin' in the refrigerator, and I'll dig out Ma's stuffin' recipe…"

"Bobby, we cannot eat that turkey," Dean said firmly.

"Ha! You just watch me," Bobby cackled, "And if you youngsters think you're gettin' a drumstick, think again…"

"I'm serious, Bobby!" snapped Dean, "Do you know where this stuff came from, huh?"

"The stores, Dean," Sam answered, "Look, I think maybe you should go lie down for a while, dude…"

"Me lying down is not the problem here, Sam!" Dean tried to keep the shrillness out of his voice, "The problem is with you lying down!"

"Huh?" Sam gaped at his brother in utter confusion.

"Look, either you explain just what's got your panties in a twist, boy," Bobby frowned, "Or I'm confiscatin' the alchohol, then callin' the men in white coats."

"I know what you've been doing, Sam," Dean's voice was tortured, "I know about your 'ways and means'."

Sam's face fell. "Oh," was all he managed to say.

"Oh?" It was Dean's turn to sound incredulous. "Oh? That's it? Oh? That's all you got to say for yourself, Bruce the Moose?"

Sam blushed. "This is exactly why I didn't tell you," he mumbled, "Because I knew you'd over-react."

"Over-react?" Dean's voice hit a new high. "Over-react? You think I'm over-reacting?"

"Well, yeah," a note of defiance crept into Sam's tone, "I knew you wouldn't like it, so I didn't say anything."

"You knew I wouldn't like it?-!" Dean almost shrieked, "You knew I'd knot your arms behind your head and lock you in the panic room if I found out!"

"Actually, yeah," Sam snapped back, "Jesus, Dean, I just wanted to make a bit of extra money!"

"Feel free to fill me in anytime now," interjected Bobby, "It's not like I need to know why a screamin' match is breakin' out in my kitchen, or anything."

"I wish I could tell you," huffed Sam, "All I know is, big brother, who's bossy and short, and _bossy_, is getting his man-period over the fact I've found a way to bring in some extra cash."

"He's been selling himself, Bobby!" Dean squawked in a combination of horror and outrage, "He's been goin' into town, and selling himself! He has a website, and he does quotes over the phone, and apparently size isn't a problem for Bruce the Moose, Sioux Falls' shaggiest and most in-demand callboy! He has been selling himself to unhot women! For money!"

There was a moment of deafening silence.

Bobby dropped his tin of shortbread with a clang.

"Sam?" asked Bobby in bewilderment.

Sam seemed to droop all over. "Okay," he sighed. "Okay. I guess this is the part where I 'fess up, right?" He sighed again. "Come on." He headed for the living room. Dean followed, wearing his most anguished 'Where Did I Go Wrong?' face.

"It started just after we got back here," Sam explained, starting his laptop, "There was this woman in town, and we got talking, and, well, it kind of started from there…"

He clicked on a desktop icon.

"I needed a pseudonym, a working name, if you like, and, well, Bruce the Moose sounded, you know…"

A cartoon moose, wearing a beanie, popped into view.

"And that's when I started my Etsy shop."

He clicked another link. A picture of Andrew and Connor, wearing their matching wolf-ears beanies, filled the screen.

Dean blinked.

"Wstfglrmf?" he went.

"I feel so ashamed," gasped Sam melodramatically, "I thought it was empowering at first, using my skills to make money, but now you've found out that I've been knitting things, and selling them over the internet, I feel… dirty."

"That one's kind of cute," Bobby pointed to a red beanie with fluffy cat ears on it.

"That's very popular. And I've done a few with reindeer antlers, too."

"But…" Dean's mouth worked silently. "But… who was that woman you met?"

"Caroline?" Sam prompted. "About five foot five, mid-fifties, well-dressed? She's the convener of a local Stitch & Bitch group. They meet in the lobby of that hotel – there's a really good café there. They've been very helpful in showing me how to follow some trickier patterns. For instance, I'm learning cable. Cable knits get a very good price. And some of the ladies have connections for getting yarn pretty cheap."

"You've been…. knitting?" said Dean faintly.

"I've been knitting," Sam admitted. "And what's worse, I've been doing it for money."

"So," Bobby cleared this throat, "Let me get this straight. You, Sam, have been knitting stuff and selling it on the internet, and you, Dean, have convinced yourself that he was workin' as a male hooker, do I have that right?"

"_Knitting?"_ Dean repeated.

"Yeah," Sam said sadly, "And I'm sorry, Dean. I'm sorry I betrayed your trust in me. I've let you down, and I've let myself down. I'm so ashamed." He wibbled his bottom lip. "Can you ever forgive me, Dean?"

With an inarticulate roar, Dean grabbed up a cushion from the living room and flung it at Sam, who burst into hysterical laughter.

"I'm gonna kill you!" roared Dean, throwing himself at his brother, "For worring the shit outta me!"

"Your face, bro!" wheezed Sam, doing his best to defend himself, "Your face when you thought I was hawking my ass! Ahahahahahahaha!"

"I'm gonna feed you your own knitting needles, bitch!" bellowed Dean.

"Totally worth it, jerk!" Sam howled with hilarity.

Bobby sighed as the Winchesters cursed and wrestled. "Well, I'll just leave you two to work this out, shall I?" he announced to nobody in particular.

Then he went back to the kitchen, and put the frozen turkey in the refrigerator to thaw.

* * *

Not sure if I could work Kevin, Mrs Kevin, or Charlie into a Jimiverse story; after all, the Jimiverse is officially, totally, completely AU as of the end of S5. In addition, I am only doing bunnies that can be dealt with as one-shots (unless an entire story plot kind of suggests itself).

A couple of little bunnielets have popped out of this exercise, though - keep the suggestions (and the reviews!) coming!


	4. UXO - Part the FIrst

**Captainbartholomew's prompt:**

_I was staring at corn fields in Indiana when this little fuzzball named Cornellius (the plotbunny) popped up._

_He started chattering about how you should try to do a combo of Best of Breed and Are You Kidding Me? He was thinking that RJ should get a hold of the grimorie that Dean touched and became a child. RJ should find and Dean could walk in while reading the spell and WAMOO kidified Dean again, but he remembers being an adult. Hilarity and adventures ensue! And somehow Sam gets changed into a dog to protect the two of them while Bobby is away from the house._

So, a combo of 'Best of Breed' and 'You Gotta Be Kidding'. I want to do these as one-shots, but I suspect that we'll have to do this one in two parts, the second of which will be added as another chapter, or this one will be updated. Anyway, Cornellius seems prepared to co-operate, so I'll give him a hearing. For anyone who's never seen the acronym before, it stands for unexploded ordnance, which really seems an appropriate description of what this two-headed little bugger has in mind…

* * *

**UXO**

_**Part the First**_

The problem with being a Man of Knowledge, Bobby reflected afterwards, was not with knowing things; it was with people knowing that you knew things. And if people knew that you knew things, they inevitably wanted help with things, because the thing about knowing things was that knowing things was synonymous in a lot of people's minds with knowing how to do things. In particular, knowing how to fix things.

It didn't always work out that way, of course. He'd met plenty of people who knew things. Some of 'em had pieces of paper from colleges or universities to prove that they knew things; it's just that the things they knew, and there could be a lot of knowing, didn't always translate into immediately, well, useful things. Like Professor Cameron, an ageing man for whom he did occasional car maintenance. The guy had won international recognition for his research into fundamental particles and radioactivity, but he was incapable of checking an oil dipstick, or refilling a washer bottle. Hell, Bobby suspected that he was incapable of recognising a washer bottle. He certainly looked like he was barely capable of dressing himself.

Bobby Singer, on the other hand, looked like a man who was entirely capable of recognising a washer bottle, but wouldn't know a neutrino if it tore through him. (This wasn't actually true; as a teenager he had in fact been fascinated by the fact that everything was made up of tiny particles that were invisible, and could never be measured AND observed both at once, although he drew the line at putting cats in boxes, because that wasn't just cruel, it was likely to get you scratched to pieces.) But the things he did know, as a Man of Knowledge, were useful, and that meant that people wanted to use them. If you needed to know how to deal with something, Bobby Singer was your man. If he couldn't tell you, he could find out. "Leave it with me," he'd say gruffly.

The problem being, of course, that people didn't just leave questions with him.

Sometimes the problem wasn't a monster that could be killed. Ganking fuglies was straightforward, if sometimes damned difficult: you just needed the right weapon, to hit it in the right spot, at the right time, and, hey presto, one dead abomination.

Other times, it was... things.

Cursed objects. Dangerously powerful artefacts. Malevolent spells. Books of pure evil. A haunted tea cosy, once, which wasn't nearly as funny as it sounded while he was dealing with it. And from time to time, a grimoire that was so powerful it was barely safe to look at. And what did Hunters do with them? Why, take them to Bobby Singer, of course, he knows things.

As a result, he'd probably dealt with more occult UXO than a veteran sapper had disarmed IEDs. And successfully, too, since he still had all his arms and legs. And attached where they were supposed to be.

The real problems, he thought, the real problems were the ones that couldn't be defused, dismantled, or subjected to the equivalent of a controlled detonation. Such things were like toxic waste, or depleted nuclear fuel rods: they had to be safely contained, hidden away from the world, where they couldn't do any damage, and nobody could use them, inadvertently or intentionally, to wreak havoc.

So, what with Bobby being a Man of Knowledge, Singer Salvage became the Hunting community's Yucca Mountain.

Every so often, he'd take the metaphorical Geiger counter to something, and spend some time trying to work out how to dispose of it safely, without blowing a hole in reality, summoning some eldritch presence, or getting himself turned into a giant green squirrel. Often, he was successful. But sometimes, he just had to admit defeat, and shove it back into its lead-lined drum, so to speak, and rebury it.

Various demons, witches and other unnatural busybodies had, from time to time, tried to stick their noses into the Singer Salvage storage silo, but he had the place warded tighter than a fat stripper's garter, so he was confident in the defences against The Evil Without.

Of course, nobody yet has figured out how to ward anything against The Human Curiosity Within, which is a good thing for Science, Justice, and The Progress Of Humanity, but not always so good for Bobby's stress levels.

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

"Exorcisamus te, omnis immundus spiritas, omnis..."

"Spirit-_us_," corrected Bobby, as RJ frowned at the text, "Omnis immundus spirit_us_, all unclean spirits."

"Omnis immundus spirit-_us_," RJ read, "Omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversairio..."

"AdverSAHrio," Bobby intoned, "Aaah sound. Not adverSAIRio."

"Can't I learn something more interesting than this?" pleaded RJ with all the whine that a ten-year-old could muster. "Dad won't even let me go on a Hunt after a chupacabra, so he sure as hell won't let me anywhere near a demon until I'm, like, thirty, and even then he'll make me stay in the car."

"More interesting than sending demons back to hell, huh?" Bobby cocked an eyebrow, "Well, what did you have in mind, Professor?"

"Uncle Sammy has been showing me how to undo curses, and spells," RJ enthused, "He put a curse on some gummi bears, and I removed it!"

"Yeah, that was good work," Bobby allowed, "It's just that next time, I'd be obliged if you two idjits would work on something that your father isn't likely to pick up and eat by the handful."

"I thought his dancing was pretty good," RJ shrugged. "For a guy his age."

"Guess it's a good thing I didn't eat 'em then," humphed Bobby. "The thing is, boy, if there's one thing, one single thing, that a Hunter really needs to know, really needs to be able to pull out of the air with no notice and no preparation and possibly while somethin' is trying to tear your head off, that thing is an effective exorcism. And for it to work, you gotta get the pronunciation exactly right. Otherwise, unless you got a demon who was once a Latin scholar, they won't feel a thing. So, let's hear it again."

RJ made his way through the Rite to his practically-grandfather's satisfaction.

"Wouldn't hurt you to do a bit more work on your Latin," he humphed. "I know for a fact your subjunctive aint all it could be."

"What are you doing?" asked RJ.

"Havin' another try at defusin' one o' the nastier grimoires I ever did come across," sighed Bobby, rubbing his eyes.

"Why don't you burn it?" the boy suggested. "Dad says, a lot of problems can be solved by just setting 'em on fire, including wendigos, witches, broccoli, and loony street preachers."

"Yeah, that sounds like the sort of thing Dean would say," Bobby chuckled. "I drafted him to help me try to torch this thing. Lighter fluid, gas, we even got old Jimi, you wouldn't remember him, he was Lars and Lemmy's dad, to pee on it. Zilch."

"Tough book," remarked RJ.

"Very." He looked up at the rumble of a large engine. "Well, speak of the devil, and he shall appear," he chortled. "Let's go see what your idjit father has done to himself this time. He suspected a home-grown werewolf... what's a werewolf's weakness?" he asked.

RJ rolled his eyes. "Silver, ammo or knife, and lack of self-awareness and sentient thought once transformed," he replied promptly. "Or, in the case of Auntie Ronnie, chocolate cake."

"I'm not gettin' paid enough to deal with more than one Winchester who's an insufferable smartass," Bobby muttered fondly, heading for the door.

RJ glanced at the book that Bobby had been studying. It even looked nasty, its thick frayed covers containing uneven, yellowed pages. He moved closer. And that's when he noticed the bookmarks.

They were intriguing bookmarks, engraved leather, clearly the product of craftsmanship. Of course, it wasn't the craftsmanship that RJ noticed right away; what he noticed was that they were all depictions of ladies who were not wearing anything. Well, unless you counted a come-hither smile, and a bit of ivy.

He knew about occult books: you never, never read anything out loud, unless you knew exactly what you were doing. Uncle Sammy had explained that very clearly. So he wouldn't read anything out loud. But the way a counter-spell kind of worked backwards from the original, it was fascinating. Maybe if he had a look, Grandpa Bobby would let him help with this one...

He was just opening the book at one of the really interesting bookmarks when he heard his Dad's voice behind him.

"Hey, RJ, what are yo- _NO!"_

There was a rush of footsteps, a strange flash of blue light, and his father grabbing him, crash-tackling him to the floor...

"Ugh! Hey, Dad, what was that for?" he asked plaintively, climbing to his feet.

Except his Dad wasn't there.

He turned around to see a little kid, with dark blonde hair and freckles, wearing clothes that were way too big for him, staring down at himself in disbelief. He looked back at RJ and piped a single word.

"Sonofabitch!"

RJ stared at him. The kid stared right back.

"Who the hell are you?" RJ demanded. "And where's my Dad?"

"It's me, you dope!" the kid snapped in a tone that was remarkably familiar, "RJ, what the hell did you think you were doing?"

RJ stared. "Dad?" he asked tentatively.

"Take a picture, it'll last longer," Dean replied sourly, "Look, haven't you been told not to mess with any of Grandpa Bobby's books?"

"I didn't mess with it!" RJ protested.

"Yeah you did," countered Dean, "Otherwise, why would I be standing here, all of about, Jesus, I'm guessing maybe six years old?"

"I didn't!" RJ insisted stridently, "I was just looking at it!" He turned back to the book. "I was just looking at these bookmarks," he demonstrated, "And..."

"DON'T!" yelled Dean, grabbing RJ and pulling him to the carpet again.

"Hey, Dean, are you in he-"

Sam stopped dead in his tracks.

He'd come looking for his brother and his nephew, but as he entered the study, he had a brief glimpse of RJ, a smaller boy, and then a funny blue shimmer in the air...

"Stop doing that!" protested RJ, getting to his feet again.

"Well, stop messing with the damned book!" Dean snapped back. The fact that he was an adorably cute six year old attenuated the severity of the reprimand somewhat. "Before somebody gets... oh."

"What's 'oh'?" RJ turned to follow his father's line of sight. "What's... oh."

He thought he'd heard his uncle's voice. He had.

Only now, it sounded like 'Rumph'.

"Uh, that's a wolfhound, right?" RJ ventured. "An Irish Wolfhound. Uh, Uncle Sammy, is that you?"

The amazingly recognisable bitchface the dog pulled made it clear that yes, it was his uncle. Who was now a dog.

"Oh. Sorry." RJ paused, nonplussed. "Still, I can undo it, just like I did the gummi bears, right?"

"RJ, don't you dare touch that book again!" ordered his six-year-old father.

"It's okay, Dad," RJ smiled reassuringly, "Uncle Sammy showed me how to do this..."

"What's goin' on in here?" demanded Bobby, "Did I hear... what the..."

There was a squawk and a yelp. He had a brief impression of a vaguely familiar little boy grabbing at RJ, while a large dog jumped at them, bearing them all to the floor, while a strange blue glow sizzled momentarily in the air...

He blinked, looked down at himself, and sighed deeply.

"Oh, balls."

"Hey, Grandpa Bobby," RJ got up off the floor, "I think we might have a bit of a... oh. Er." RJ, six-year-old Dean and Sam the Irish Wolfhound all stared at him. "So," RJ continued nonchalantly, "I'm sure we can fix this, but until then, should I call you, um, Grandma Bobbie?"

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

"The first thing," Bobby (or should that be Bobbie?, RJ wondered again), "When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you gotta do, is stop diggin'. So, RJ don't go near that damned book again."

"No ma'am, uh, sir, uh, right," stumbled RJ, as his grand...parent glowered at him.

"I thought we taught you better'n that," grumbled Dean, heading back into the kitchen as he pulled on one of the sweaters that RJ had long grown out of.

Sam rumbled something that sounded remarkably snide.

"Heh heh," chortled Bobby, "I think he's remindin' you that you did exactly the same thing, more n' ten years ago. Wanted a smutty book mark, if I recall correctly."

"Yeah?" RJ turned and grinned at his child-father, who looked sheepish. "What happened?"

"Well, that grimoire is the spell book of a powerful witch, who was suckin' away the years of men's lives to keep herself young and beautiful," Bobby told him, "And when Dean opened the book..."

"It opened itself," Dean muttered sullenly.

"... Course it did, ya idjit, anyways, I saw what was comin', so I tackled him, and ended up turned back to a seven year old."

"You did return the favour," Dean pointed out, well, pointedly.

"You deserved it," humphed Bobby.

"So how did you fix it?" asked RJ. Sam whined.

"Sam figured it out," Dean answered, unable to avoid a small look of pride towards his little brother, "He asked Cas to find us a warlock who was doing practically the same thing, and got us to lose years to him playing poker until we were our own ages again."

"Unfortunately, Patrick aint gonna be of any help to us this time," Bobby sighed, "We figured then that she must've booby-trapped her grimoire – that's what this must be."

"She sure 'booby'-trapped you," grinned Dean. Sam huffed in disgust.

Bobby glowered at him, then glanced resignedly down at 'her'... chest. "It's a good thing I like my shirts loose fit," he observed. "And that is an entirely inappropriate observation to be comin' from a six-year-old."

"So, how do we fix it this time?" asked RJ.

"Short of surgery and hormones," added Dean.

"Right now, I got no idea," Bobby told them, standing up, "But I think that first, we eat. Any sort of crisis is generally best dealt with on a full stomach."

"You gonna be mother, and cook?" asked Dean, with an impish grin.

"Seein' as I'm the only responsible adult, I guess," Bobby shrugged, "And might I remind you that you are not too big to be put over my knee."

"You dirty old lady," Dean leered, "I'm too young, you're too old, and I hate to say it but you are totally not my type."

"Idjit."

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

"Stop it!"

"Grrrrrrr!"

"Stop it!"

"Grrrrrrrr!"

"Gimme!"

"Grrrrrrr!"

"Knock it off!" snarled Bobby, emerging from the study to investigate the noise. He was not in a good mood: he'd been planning a supply run into town because the cupboard was now officially bare, he hadn't made any progress on undoing the booby-trap spells, and he couldn't do a thing with his hair.

The argument was coming from the living room, where Dean was losing a tug-of-war with wolfhound Sam.

"Make him give it over, Bobby!" demanded Dean, yanking at whatever Sam had in his teeth.

"Grrrrrrrr," went Sam.

"What the hell are you asshats playin' at while I'm tryin' to concentrate?" demanded Bobby.

"He stole my beer!" complained Dean, "And he won't give it back! And _Dr Sexy_ is on in five minutes!"

"Good thing, too," humphed Bobby, "You're in the body of a six-year-old, Dean, which means, no drinking."

"What?" Dean's squeaked in horror. "You can't do that!"

"Watch me," Bobby snapped. "And it's past your bedtime, too."

"Crap!" Dean shot back, "I'm not tired!" he stifled a yawn.

"Uh-huh," nodded Bobby, "Well, I don't wanna deal with a tired and cranky six-year-old, and the ten-year-old has already turned in, so, go on."

"I'm not going to bed yet!" Dean insisted.

"Do you want Auntie Roberta to come upstairs and sing you a song?" Bobby enquired sweetly. "Brush your hair? Put you into your jammies? Tuck you in? Kiss you goodnight?"

"Oh, gross!" Dean's face screwed up into an adorable picture of childish distaste, "Not until you wax your moustache, lady! The foundation is totally not covering it!"

"You hightail your ass upstairs, mister," Bobby growled, "Before I do it for you."

"Bite me!" squawked Dean.

Before Bobby could make good on his threat, Sam dropped the beer bottle, trotted over, and seized his brother by the back of the pants, picking him up like a naughty puppy.

"Put me down!" screeched Dean, wiggling, "Sam, you put me the fuck down!"

"Yup, sounds like the bedtime tantrum of an overtired child to me," grinned Bobby, "Take him away, Sam."

With Dean still yelling up a storm, Sam turned and headed for the stairs.

Bobby headed back to the study, and picked up his – her? It was enough to do a body's head in – glasses. Six year old Dean had been enough of a handful first time around; adult Dean in a six year old body was something he didn't think he could cope with.

An hour later, he pushed his (her?) chair back, and stretched. He'd tried, on and off, over more than ten years to deal with this grimoire, and hadn't found a way to destroy it safely, let alone an approach to countering one of its spells. He had to be realistic. The woman who'd done this had been powerful. Too powerful. He was beaten, and he knew it.

With a sigh, he (she?) stiffly got to his knees, and put his (her - it was goin' to make his, or her, head explode) hands together.

"Now I kneel me down to pray  
To Castiel, my prayer I say.  
We have a problem with a book  
When RJ tried to take a look.

The book's a witch's grimoire, and  
It's more than I can understand.  
We've had this trouble once before,  
When I threw Dean down to the floor

A smutty bookmark was the key  
To triggering an IOD,  
Or improvised occult device.  
In fact, the thing got set off twice,

When Dean and me were kids again,  
And Sam went just about insane.  
Well, RJ read the witch's log,  
Now Dean's a kid, and Sam's a dog

And I got hit with some inverter,  
Now you can call me Roberta.  
Really, I'm in need of aid,  
To change us back. And learn to braid.

So if you can drop by, well then  
You'd have my gratitude. Amen.

And if from this life my soul soon shuffles,  
Don't let them bury me wearing ruffles."

* * *

This one will be finished in the nearish future - Cornellius is pretty clear about where it's going, I just have to find the time to write it.

Reviews feed the bunnies, and prompts suggest the funnies!


	5. UXO - Part the Second

**UXO**

** Part the Second**

"I'm hungryyyyy," whined Dean, pouting in a way that would be described by gushing grandmotherly women as 'adorable' if they weren't the ones having to listen to him.

"You really got the whole six-year-old shtick down pat, don't ya?" grumbled Bobby, without the slightest bit of gushing to go with the grandmotherly shtick. "I told ya, I was plannin' on doin' a supply run as soon as you got back, then somebody," he glowered at RJ, "Had to go and change our priorities."

"Food gets a pretty damned high priority," stated Dean firmly. The wolfhound behind him managed to roll its eyes in a very Samesque fashion.

"You'll have to wait until I get back," instructed Bobby.

"But I'm hungry noooooooow!" Dean practically wailed.

"Meeee toooooooo!" added RJ.

"The sad thing is," griped Bobby, "That sort of problem with delayed gratification might be understandable in a real six year old, but I know that as soon as you're back how you should be, you won't be any better." He adjusted his (her? Oh, balls) hat to accommodate the serviceable bun he'd managed that morning.

"I see you got your hair sorted out," Dean noted.

"I used one of Sam's hairbrushes," Bobby grunted. Sam whined. "Well, if we're gonna eat, we'll have to go out…"

"Yaaaay! I want pancakes!" cheered RJ.

"Eggs! Bacon! Hash browns!" enthused Dean.

"And I suppose a nice bowl o' kibble won't do it for you?" Bobby sighed in Sam's direction. The dog managed to pull the exact expression he'd made the previous night when offered dog food – it was amazing how a dog's face could convey, with a single look, the fact that no, he might be shaped like a dog, but he was still Sam Winchester, and a plate full of solidified chunks of Cas knows what in the way of offcuts from the slaughterhouse mixed with GMO cereal would most certainly not be satisfactory, and a large Vegie Lovers with extra cheese and peppers would go down a treat, thank you very much, unless they do that eggplant lasagna because that was totally delicious, and get garlic bread with that.

"Balls," muttered Bobby. "Well, if we're gonna do this, there have to be some ground rules. I will be dear sweet old Grandma Bobbie taking my adorable, sweet and astonishingly polite and breathtakin'ly well-behaved grandsons out for breakfast, accompanied by their faithful hound, Sam. You will amaze and delight all with your table matters, your respectable language and your total failure to demand coffee and the waitress's phone number, do I make myself clear?"

"Sure thing, Grandma," Dean beamed in a way that would make those other unsuspecting grandmothers want to pinch his cheek. "But if a strange woman offers me candy, I reserve the right to follow her home if she has a great rack."

'I'm not gettin' paid enough for this," Bobby rumbled. "All right then, we'll take the truck. I'm afraid you'll have to ride in the bed, Sam. No barkin' at the pedestrians. But first," he glanced down at his, in all honesty, fairly magnificent chest, "I gotta go dig out my box of panto dame gear."

"Bobby," Dean's grin was at least twenty years too old for his face, "Don't tell me you're gonna put on a little black dress to take us to breakfast?"

"Nope," Bobby replied in a resigned tone, "But realisitically, aint no way I can leave the house without some sort o' foundation garment. Something happens and I have to run, I'll end up givin' myself a black eye."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

Bobby drove them to the other side of town, where he hoped that they wouldn't run into anyone who knew them. He headed for a small diner with outdoor seating, then addressed a matter of some delicacy with Sam.

"I know you won't like it," he sympathized, fastening the collar, "But there are by-laws about controllin' animals in public places. You'll just have to pretend to be a well-trained doggy, out with the family."

Sam whined.

"Look on the bright side, bro," Dean grinned that evil grin that was way to knowing for his six year old face, "Think of what certain fangirls will make of this when Chuck gets around to writing it. Sammy's wearing a collar, and Dean has hold of the leash…"

Sam whined again.

"If enough of them squee all at once, it could even disrupt cell phone services…"

Sam let out a pained yelp.

"And if we're lucky, Becky might even squee herself to death, 'cause you just know that when she re-writes it, you're gonna have studs on your collar, and a harness to go with it, and I say, Sammy, you've been a bad, bad boy, then I get a rolled up newspaper, and…"

Sam bared his teeth, and managed a completely recognizable Bitchface #10™ (Tonight, You Die In Your Sleep).

"Who's Becky?" asked RJ, climbing out of the truck.

"We'll tell you when you're older," Bobby snapped, in a voice that indicated that the particular line of that conversation was now closed. For at least the next decade.

"Like, when you're about forty," added Dean. "Come on, Sammy, heel!"

They seated themselves outside, and Dean perused the menu. "Hey, they do Pig-in-a-Poke!" he enthused. "I want that! And hash browns! And waffles!"

"Pancakes! Pancakes!" RJ chimed in.

A waitress approached their table, smiling at the two boys. "Good morning," she smiled, "Would you like to order, ma'am, or do you need more time? Oh," her smile faltered as she saw Sam. "I'm so sorry, but your dog can't sit with you."

"Oh, why ever not, dear?" asked Bobby in his best grandmotherly tone.

"It's management's rules," the waitress said apologetically.

"Oh, please, dear," Bobby pleaded, "He's a part of the family."

"Nooooo!" wailed RJ, "You can't leave Sam in the truck!" he let his eyes fill with tears. "Please."

"I'm sorry honey," the waitress sounded genuinely regretful, "But we can't let pets in the dining area."

"But… he's not a pet!" RJ burst out, "He's… he's my brother's assistance dog!"

"Huh?" gaped Dean.

"Hrumph?" went Sam.

The waitress blinked. "Assistance dog?" she repeated. "Is that like a, a, seeing eye dog?"

"Oh, the idea is the same, dear," Bobby smiled dotingly, "Young Dean here has a developmental disorder – oh, no, now you see, pulling faces like that is one of the effects, hey Deanie, what have we said about using our Polite Face is public? – and Sam is his helper dog. Helps him with the sorts of things that we take for granted with other kids. Don't you, Sam?" Sam turned a beaming doggy grin on the waitress, and sat up alertly, a picture of attentive and loyal guardianship.

"He keeps Dean safe around traffic," Bobby beamed at 'her' youngest 'grandson', who was battling to get his Polite Face to take over from his I Will Kill You For This Later Face, "And stops him from wandering off, and raises the alarm if he gets into difficulty or has one of his episodes…"

"And he can even take him to the bathroom," added RJ with a brotherly smile. "He's not a seeing-eye dog, he's kind of like a thinking-brain dog."

"It's thanks to Sam that these two are even alive," Bobby confided, "He was the one who got them out of the house, when the fire started… he went back to try to wake their parents, but it had taken hold…" he let his bottom lip wibble, and dabbed at his eyes with a lace-edge hanky he extracted from somewhere.

"Sam saved us," intoned RJ solemnly. "He barked until I woke up, and led me out through the smoke, then he went back for Dean, and carried him out of the house."

"Did he really?" the waitress looked at Sam with admiration.

"Uh-huh," RJ nodded, "Grabbed him by the back of his diaper, and carried him out."

"Well, he sounds like a remarkable dog," the waitress smiled, "I'm sure we can let him sit here with you." She beamed at Sam and Dean. "It's amazing, the bond that children can form with special animals."

"You don't know the half of it," Bobby smiled back. With a look of total, utter, unconditional adoration on his face, Sam leaned in, and tenderly nuzzled the side of Dean's face.

The small boy's face pulled into a rictus that the waitress assumed must be his Polite Face. "I love my doggie-woggie," he said, hugging the big grey hound.

"Oh, you two are just the perfect pair!" she laughed. "BFFs, right?"

"Me and my shaggy-waggy doggie-woggie," Dean managed through gritted teeth, "Even if he a total bitchy-witchy," he added, _sotto voce_, for Sam's benefit.

Breakfast was ordered, and duly arrived, including a stack of pancakes for Sam ("Oh, he thinks he's a person, dear, you should see him go at a Vegie Lovers pizza").

"I'm gonna put fleas in your bed for that, you bitch," Dean growled at is doggie-woggie brother around a mouthful of sausage and batter, "And as for you, RJ, when this is over, you are so grounded…"

"What did I do?" RJ burst out, "We had to think of a cover story for Uncle Sammy!"

"You did very well," Bobby reassured him, "And technically speaking, I can't help wonderin' if there is some sort of disability that we could call Dean Syndrome, a mix of Peter Pan Personality, Sex Maniac and Starving Hog, maybe."

"I hate you all," Dean griped, shoving a waffle into his face, "And before you say anything, today this _is_ my Polite Face, okay?"

A number of people paused to speak to Bobby; there were some of those gullible grandmas paused to speak to Bobby, assuming reasonably enough that she was just another member of The Guild and therefore would like to talk about 'her grandchildren' with a fellow Nanna, and a query about whether Bobby would consider standing Sam at stud.

"What does standing at stud mean?" asked RJ.

"It means, when a boy dog breeds with a girl dog, so she has puppies," explained Bobby. "Like Lemmy and Rosie. I'm sorry," he smiled at the man asking, "But we don't intend to breed from him again. He's older than he looks…"

"He doesn't really know what to do," Dean piped eagerly, "He did it once, and he could only do it in the dark, and he cried the whole time."

The man laughed with Bobby in a 'Kids Say The Darndest Things' way, patted Sam, and moved on.

"I am goin' to strangle all three of you," Bobby muttered, dropping some bills on the table, "Or put you all on leashes."

"I don't need to be on a leash!" insisted Dean.

"For preference, I'd put you in a cage," Bobby conceded, "But that's not an option right now." He sighed. "Now, I will be takin' you idjits home, then goin' back out for supplies, and if there is so much as a broken blade of grass when I get back, Cas help you."

"You don't need to do that," Dean assured him, "We can help you!"

"Really?" Bobby cocked a disbelieving eyebrow.

"Seriously," nodded RJ.

"Well, maybe, then," humphed Bobby, starting the engine.

When he pulled into a bay near a supermarket, he turned to them, and announced,

"So, it's time for you to help me – by stayin' in the truck, the hell out of the way."

"Awwwwwww!" chorused Dean and RJ in disappointment.

"Awww me no awwws," snapped Bobby, "I don't need to be keepin' an eye on you idjits while I'm fendin' off the Grandmothers' Guild."

"You're mean," pouted RJ.

"Aren't you a bit old to be getting this hormonal?" asked Dean solicitously.

"Nope," Bobby smiled unpleasantly, "Nor am I too old to put you across my knee and paddle your tush for willful misbehaviour."

"You wouldn't!" squeaked Dean, "That's child abuse!"

"That's discipline, if the kid has been warned, is intentionally being a little asshat, and gets his dignity hurt more than anything else," Bobby informed him. He let Sam into the cab after he got out. "So, behave."

"This is so demeaning," griped Dean, crossing his arms and swinging his legs, "And I'm warning you, Sasquatch, you gas us all in here and I will totally throw your ass back into the bed."

Sam managed a panting whuff that sounded remarkably like a laugh.

They played one of RJ's favourite car games, What Kind Of Fugly Would That Person Be, for a while ("See that woman? She'd be a rugaru." "No, Dad, she'd be a werewolf." "No, no, look at the size of her, she clearly eats people regularly." "Dad, she's got a moustache! And sideburns!"), but, whether it was because he was in a six-year-old body, or because he was Dean, soon enough he complained of boredom.

"I'm booooored!" he whined. Sam humphed a remarkably expressive disdainful whuff, which clearly indicated that, not only did he not care, he didn't want to hear about how bored his brother was, in fact he'd be happiest if his brother just shut the hell up entirely. Preferably for at least a week.

"You could read the manual," RJ suggested, opening the glove box and pulling out the yellowed and dog-eared booklet.

"I know it by heart already," scoffed Dean. His eyes strayed to the convenience store at the end of the street. "But I bet I could get something more interesting there."

"Uh, I don't think Grandpa Bobby – or Grandma Bobbie – would like that," RJ commented doubltfully. Sam whined.

"Yeah, well, 'she' is clearly hormonal and not thinking right," Dean stated firmly, "So, I'm thinking, we could get a magazine or two, and some jerky, and some candy?"

"Yeah?" RJ's interest had been piqued.

"Yeah," grinned Dean, "But I'll need my wingman to pull this off. You up for it?"

"Sure, Dad!" smiled RJ.

Sam yapped irritably, clearly not happy as Dean described his plan.

"Put a cork in it, Francis," remarked Dean, "We used to do this all the time when we were kids. So, let's go."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

Bobby would've been quicker, but when he spotted a young guy trying to rob another older lady's handbag while she perused a shelf, he felt obliged to act, whacking him upside the head with his own bag and throwing him against the shelving while store security was summoned.

"That wasn't very nice, dear," 'she' cooed at him, "And before you contemplate tryin' to make a run for it, I will tell you that the pricking sensation you can feel down there is a white ash hairpin. You'd be amazed at what I could do to a guy's reproductive potential with just a hairpin."

He finally made it to the check-out, then headed back to the truck, half in anticipation of finding it trashed, deserted, or, worst case scenario, gone.

"So, did you idjits behave yoursel- God's tits!" he yelped.

RJ was reading a car magazine and eating from a large bag of Skittles, Dean was reading another one and munching on jerky, and Sam was licking out a large pot of strawberry yoghurt. The Wolfhound was the only one who managed to look marginally guilty.

"Hey, Grandma Bobbie!" beamed Dean, "How did the shopping go?"

"Do I even want to know?" sighed Bobby.

"Just like old times," grinned Dean, "We went into the store, RJ bought a packet of skittles, I broke a bottle of milk then burst into heart-rending tears, and RJ bundled me out of there with many heartfelt apologies…"

"And what did you do while Robin Hood and Little John were doin' this?" Bobby asked Sam sourly.

"He kept watch," RJ offered, "And stuck his head in the door to distract the cashier while Dad grabbed the magazines." Sam whined and managed to look guilty, yet convey the message that the yoghurt was very good indeed.

"Bunch of idjits," Bobby muttered, holding the door open. Sam picked up his yoghurt pot, and headed for the bed. "I suppose I should just be grateful you didn't get one o' them other books, about beautiful ladies from Asia. Explainin' to a passin' busybody what a six year old was doin' reading one o' those would be more than I could handle right now."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

By the time they got back to the yard, Dean was complaining of a stomach ache.

"Serves you right," gruffed Bobby, "Tryin' to stuff an adult-Dean-sized breakfast, plus packets of jerky, into a six-year-old-Dean-sized body."

"I don't feel goooood," Dean moaned.

"Well, go on upstairs and lie down," Bobby told him, putting down bags of groceries. Dean grizzled wordlessly until Sam picked him up by the back of the pants again to carry him upstairs, upon which the grizzling changed to outraged squawking. "And you," he frowned at RJ, "Go and keep yourself busy. When I'm done here, I'll be back to trying to work out how to undo your little adventure in occult literature."

"Yes, ma'am, uh, sir," RJ replied, heading for the living room.

He settled with his car magazine, and was just thinking that maybe he'd like to try to draw some of the renovated Classics in its pages when he heard a _flap-flap_ noise.

"Hello, RJ."

"Gah!" RJ jumped, and turned to the Sheriff of Heaven, who was sitting on the sofa right next to him. "Hi, Cas," he went on , "Uh, you know you scare the hell out of people when you do that?"

"My apologies," Castiel said gravely.

RJ looked at him. "Why aren't you upstairs making Dad yell about personal space?" he asked, "And doing the stare thing that looks like you're thinking about eating him?"

"Your father is feeling unwell due to overeating, and is currently asleep," Castiel answered, "I did not wish to wake him. However, I am not here to speak to him. Bobby prayed to me last night, asking for assistance with a malevolent spell."

Sensing an opportunity to undo some of the damage he'd done, RJ jumped up from the sofa. "He's busy in the kitchen, but I can show you," he enthused, "It's in the study." He led the way, with Castiel in tow.

"I have encountered this book before," Castiel frowned at the grimoire, "Yet Bobby's prayer described different effects from what occurred last time." He cocked his head. "Can you tell me what happened?"

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

Bobby thought he heard voices in the living room, and went to investigate. "Is that you, Feathers?" he called.

"We're in here, Grandpa Bobby!" called RJ from the study, "I'm just showing Cas the book…"

Bobby sprinted for the study. He didn't give himself a black eye because he was wearing the least ostentatious foundation garment he'd been able to find in his panto dame box. He burst through the door like a running back in full flight, having just a moment to see Castiel cock his head enquiry before he tackled RJ to the floor.

"This is getting old," grumbled RJ as he rolled over and picked himself up.

"What the hell did you think you were doin', ya idjit?" demanded Bobby, climbling painfully to his (or her – a body could really go nuts in the wrong body) feet.

"Cas said he got your prayer, and he's here to help," RJ replied, "So I was just showing him the book, and telling him about the spells that went off, right, Cas?"

Bobby turned to look at the Angel of the Lord, and Sheriff of Heaven.

"Oh, balls."

"Uh," RJ looked sheepish, "I guess we can just call him Catstiel, then."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

Once Dean was awake and feeling better, Bobby called a meeting in the living room.

"Well, as you know," he began.

"Cas!" yipped Dean, as the small grey and white cat rubbed up against him, "Personal space, dude!"

"Or maybe you don't," sighed Bobby – unlike Sam, Castiel showed no signs of self-awareness in his new animal vessel. He appeared to be a cat, who thought he was a cat, and insisted on acting like a cat. "Anyway, as I was saying…"

"Ow! Ow!" yelped Dean, as Castiel jumped into his lap and began to knead, "Claws, Cas, claws!"

"Anyway," Bobby pressed on, "The point I'm tryin' to make is…"

Sam nosed gingerly at the small cat. Castiel turned and let out a teeth-baring hiss that would do a tiger proud.

"Don't provoke the angel, Sam," instructed Bobby, as Sam yelped and jumped backwards to avoid a swipe of tiny yet very sharp claws, "You'll just get a smiting you won't forget in a hurry. Now, the situation here is kinda tricky. I was hopin' that Fluffy here would have some ideas about how to undo this little clusterfuck, but… do you think you could keep your voice down?"

Having made himself comfortable on Dean's lap, Castiel did what cats have always done when given an instruction by a human: he ignored Bobby entirely. If anything, he purred even more loudly.

"The point here is, the point is," Bobby perservered, "We got a major problem. This woman was an old, cunning, powerful witch. And I gotta admit defeat on undoin' her handywork.

"Why can't we hunt her down, and make her undo it, then?" asked RJ.

"We can't," Dean replied glumly, as Castiel butted at his hand for stroking. "She's dead. We ganked her. Cas, that is totally disturbing."

"Well, that may not be strictly true," Bobby informed them. "And I got an idea about that. It's drastic, and if I thought there was any other option I wouldn't even consider it, but I'm right out of ideas."

He told them his plan.

"You're right," Dean nodded, "Your idea sucks."

"It sucks, it blows, it stinks," Bobby agreed, "But unless you got any other suggestions…"

The Irish Wolfhound let out a very Samesque humph of resignation.

"All right then," Bobby declared. "Dean, you hang on to Cas, and don't let him wander off…"

"He, uh, doesn't seem to want to go anywhere," Dean commented reluctantly. In his lap, Castiel rolled over and stretched. Dean sighed, and scritched the cat under the chin. Sam panted his amusement.

"Just keep him entertained. RJ, give me a hand with the rug here, then we're gonna need some things from the study…"

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

It was a simple ritual, needing only a devil's trap, some blood and herbs, and the right incantation. RJ watched wide-eyed as a blurry flurry of black roiling smoke took shape…

"Bobby!" enthused a voice, "Long time no summons! So, to what do I owe the…" the voice trailed to a halt. "Oh…"

"Hello, Crowley," sighed Bobby.

"Hello, indeed," the King of Hell recovered, bowing politely, "I am so terribly sorry, madam, I mistook you for somebody…" he blinked. "Bobby?" he stammered. "Bobby, that is you, isn't it?"

"Yeah, Crowley, it's me," Bobby replied, rolling his eyes, "Let me explain..."

"Bobby – or should I call you Bobbie? – there is absolutely no need whatsoever to explain yourself to me," Crowley smiled, clearly entranced by what he saw. "You are an intelligent adult, capable of making your own life choices. And may I say, I find this one particularly agreeable."

Dean let out a snigger that was definitely too knowing for a six-year-old.

"Look, Crowley," Bobby tried again, "I got a problem that I hope you can help me with…"

"If you have an itch, I can most definitely help you scratch, dear lady," Crowley suggested hopefully.

"Not exactly," Bobby humphed, "But I do have a problem with a grimoire…"

He explained the situation, and Crowley took in the six year old, the cat and the dog.

"I must say," His Infernal Majesty mused, "I do rather like them like this."

Sam snarled. Castiel hissed. Dean flipped him off.

"As charming as ever," he sniffed disdainfully, "But I digress, Bobbie, darling, what was it that you wanted?"

"I want to talk to the witch who did this," Bobby replied, "I'm pretty damned sure she went South after she got ganked, so I want you, Your Majesty, to haul her sorry ass up here, and make her undo it."

Crowley looked abashed. "That's a most… irregular request," he said finally.

"Well this is kind of an irregular situation," Bobby pointed out.

"Most definitely," Crowley agreed, "And yet, I wonder if you've thought this through completely."

"Huh?" Bobby gaped.

"Well," Crowley continued, "I cannot help but notice that, as a woman, you have a certain something, a certain presence, dare I say, an allure, a _je ne sais quoi_…"

"What's a jenesay kwa?" asked RJ.

"It means 'I've got no idea'," supplied Dean.

"Ah, the attack dog and its pup," Crowley said through a strained smile, "So, Winchester the Elder, have you eaten any good books lately?"

"Nope," Dean's smile was feral, "But I've ganked a couple of demons."

"What an irrepressible little pillock you are," Crowley noted, "Now, as I was saying, Bobby, no, Bobbie, have you stopped to consider the illuminating experience you could have getting in touch with your feminine side, which is, I must tell you, what I believe would be referred to as a fine figure of a woman…"

Knowing that Dean would never let him hear the end of it, Bobby – or Bobbie – giggled a little.

"Oh, Crowley!" she tittered, "You are a shameless sweet-talker, and no mistake, you ladies' man, you!"

"On the contrary, madam," Crowley smiled a little brighter, "I am extremely choosy."

"As much as any woman likes to be flattered," Bobby tried a little eyelash flutter, "I really do have to get these silly boys back to their own selves. I don't want Sam shedding all over the house, and the idea of raising Dean from six years old again, well, it just don't bear thinking about. It would mean so much to me if I could just have a word with the witch responsible." Bobbie leaned into the trap, and touched his arm. "Please, Crowley."

"How can I deny you when you ask so nicely?" sighed Crowley. "Very well, I shall summon the appropriate demon, but… there will be a price."

"A… price?" Bobbie repeated.

"I'm King of the Crossroads, darling," Crowley reminded 'her', "So if you make a deal with me, there's always a price. And my price is… lunch!"

"Lunch?" Bobbie blinked.

"Yes! Lunch!" Crowley beamed. "After this is sorted out, dear lady, I shall sit down with you, and have lunch!"

"I'm not sharing my pie with that asshole," snapped Dean.

"Oh, I think we could manage to accommodate one more for lunch," Bobbie forced herself to smile. "Very well, I accept your terms."

"I'm so glad to hear it," Crowley pulled out a cell. "Hello, Orgle? Yes, it's me, look I have a priority job for you, drop everything – hmmmm? All right, well, drop everybody, and see to it, _toute suite_, and the tooter the sweeter. I'll text you the details, then cancel all my appointments this afternoon…. Yes, that's a very good point, nobody bothers to make appointments, well make pathetic and transparent excuses to anyone who barges into my office, now, must dash, toodle-bye." He peered at the grimoire, then sent a text. "She will be here momentarily," he informed them, "Orgle is such a find, such a fiend find, ha ha ha, what would I do without him…"

A minute or so later, another swirl of black smoke coalesced in the devil's trap, taking the form of a woman.

"So, Adeline Fabron," Crowley clapped her on the shoulder, and she let out a little shriek, "I have a little job for you, Adeline, which you will perform forthwith, if not sooner, should you wish to avoid another stint on the rack, or possibly spend the next Topside year on Hellpoodle litter tray duty…"

The damned soul let out another shriek.

"Don't do that again, darling, some of us have to use these physical ears sometimes," he told her in a pained voice, signaling for Bobby to hand over the grimoire. "Now, I would like you to defuse this nasty, nasty little book of yours."

Her eyes moving in wary, trapped circles from Crowley's smile to Bobby's scowl and back, she extended a shaking hand, and took the book, muttering over it.

The book began to glow, pulsing with an attenuated shade of the blue light flashes that had presaged its occult booby traps. It flickered in her grasp, then disappeared.

"The spells will dissolve before sunset," she announced in a trembling voice.

"Well done!" Crowley patted her on the head, "Now why don't you run along back Downstairs?"

With another frightened little squeal, the damned soul fled.

"And so," Crowley clapped his hands, "If you would just be so kind as to let me out of this trap, we can get on with the business of lunch, which I'm sure that even Baby Winchester there will agree with me, is a terribly important matter."

"I'm not too small to stab your ass," growled Dean.

"Such a little scamp he is," tutted Crowley.

"Thank you, I guess," conceded Bobby, "I gotta tell ya, I'm lookin' forward to bein' able to ditch a certain piece of intimate apparel, the underwires are…"

Before he could finish the sentence, Crowley and Bobby disappeared.

"What the…?" yelped Dean. "Where did they go?"

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

"…somethin' that takes some gettin' used to… GOD'S TITS!" Bobby roared, jumping in startlement. "Crowley, what the hell is this?"

"Lunch, dear lady, it's lunch!" Crowley's smile was positively brilliant. "My treat!" He swept an arm around to indicate the scenery, which included the Eiffel Tower. "The setting, and the food, are on me!"

"Is this… Paris?" asked Bobbie, as a Maitre D' discreetly hovered.

"City of culture, city of fashion," beamed Crowley, "And, dare I say it, city of romance…"

"Crowley," Bobby growled, "What the hell are you playin' at?"

"Don't you think you deserve a little me-time, Bobbie – may I call you Roberta?" Crowley asked. "I merely wanted us to have some time away from the kids, a little _tete a tete_, an enjoyable chat without the rugrats under our feet…"

"Cool off, Pepe Le Pew," Bobby warned the demon, "And stop makin' it sound like we're married."

"I just think that you might want to consider this new, and wonderful, development in your rich and amazing experience," Crowley suggested, "Earlier today, I received a summons, pleasantly anticipated, from, I assumed, a genuinely rough diamond bloke with a beard, and instead, I find myself conversing with a babe with a bun and a frankly magnificent bust… Oh, Bobbie, is that black lace?"

"Crowley…"

"I must admit myself fascinated with you like this," Crowley continued, "You are the most interesting person I know, Bobbie, love, and now you are even more interesting…"

"Crowley…"

"Don't be coy," Crowley wagged a finger, "Oh, don't play hard to get, don't toy with my affections, Bobbie – you know, I have this sudden urge to sink my teeth into your bun…"

"I got a sudden urge to stab you with my hair pin," Bobby shot back.

"Ah, but you made a deal," Crowley grinned, "For lunch! And then, well, there's… the other matter."

"What other matter?" snapped Bobby.

"You made a deal," Crowley edged closer, "With a demon. And I didn't want to ask you to seal it in front of the kiddies, I do have some standards you know…"

"You have to be kidding me!" yelped Bobby.

"Go on, you know you want to," Crowley leered, "It's not like it's the first time, after all…"

"Crowley, I'm warnin' you…"

"Pucker up, darling!"

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

By the time Bobby mysteriously reappeared as suddenly as he'd vanished – with beard and Y chromosome back in place – Dean was his appropriate age, Sam was his appropriate species, and Castiel was his appropriate shape.

"What the hell happened to you?" demanded Dean.

"Crowley," griped Bobby, "And no, I don't wanna talk about it."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

Orgle was tabulating the figures for the Most Deals Made This Month plaque when he heard his boss come back in.

"How did it go, Mr Crowley?" he asked solicitously.

Crowley stood, his tie askew, his collar torn off, his suit missing an arm, his shirt shredded and with a large bloodstain blooming, and with the beginnings of a black eye and a beautiful smile on his face.

"What happened, Mr Crowley?" asked the fiend.

"Roberta happened," Crowley sighed dreamily. "She slapped me, stabbed me, shot me, then exorcised me."

"Wow," Orgle breathed. "And I was worried that she wouldn't like you."

"What a woman," mused Crowley, "I did but see her passing by, and yet I'll love her 'til I die…" He sighed deeply. "I'll never wash this shirt again, as long as I… um, exist."

"So, she decided to go back to being Mr Singer, then?" enquired Orgle.

"Unfortunately, yes," Crowley sighed once more, "I could've given her the Underworld, but it was not to be. But 'tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all, right?"

"I suppose it depends on how many shirts you have spare," Orgle eyed his boss doubtfully.

"If anyone wants me, I shall be in my office, writing wistful remembrances in my personal journal," Crowley told him.

"I didn't know you kept a personal journal, Mr Crowley," commented Orgle.

"I don't," the King of Hell told him, "But I intend to start one to record today."

Since it was the only souvenir he had, Crowley pressed his tie between the pages of the heavy tome he selected for the job. And after that, on days when he felt particularly downtrodden, he would look at it, and admire the way the bloodstains on it made patterns that looked a little bit like a screaming soul being dismembered, and it would cheer him up no end.

**THE END**

* * *

Kudos to **The Blue Orleans** for seeing where Cornellius was going with this one. Now, which little mutant bunny to stomp on next?


	6. Teach A Young Dog New Tricks

**E-Mouse Girl's wrote:**

_Also, you introduced Mako in Teacher's Pet - will we find out how Ronnie came to have such a creature?_

We had a perigee moon Down Here recently, so maybe it was under its influence that this little bunny jumped forth. Unfortunately Winchester—free (the Impala was just pulling out a Bobby's yard as the other truck pulled in), and some readers may find this one to have a whiff of the Mary-Sues about it, but since some of you seem quite fond of the Jimiverse's Crankiest Werewolf, I thought we'd give it an airing. Struggled with a title, but decided to call it:

* * *

**Teach A Young Dog New Tricks**

To an outsider, it would have looked cruel: one pup, alone, just past the age of leaving his dam's den, in a pen by himself.

_Dog of the Blood… Blood of the Pit…_

The other inhabitants of the kennel were asleep, but this one pup turned his nose to the full moon, and felt the tug of his heritage in a way that he did not understand.

_Dog of the Blood… Blood of the Pit…_

He paced the fence, pausing occasionally to shake his large, misshapen head as if in confusion, then snarling suddenly and charging at the barrier, biting at the wire, whether to attempt escape or just to savage something was impossible to know.

They were out there. Wrong things. And it made his Blood boil, drove him mad with the lack of comprehension.

Dogs, like all canines, are social animals – they can only survive and thrive in the mutually supportive environment of a group. The Pack is more than just family: the order and discipline of the Pack is stability, and reassurance, and safety, and the knowledge of place, of belonging. The Pack is all.

If this pup was separated from the Pack, it was only for their well-being.

_This is not my Pack._

_Dog of the Blood… Blood of the Pit…_

He renewed his attack on the fence.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

Bobby Singer was at the kitchen window when the unfamiliar dilapidated pick-up pulled into his yard – he could recognize a Hunter's vehicle at a hundred paces, and he understood that he'd become something of a go-to guy for those who chased down the things that went bump in the night. Need ammo, info, advice, a contact, or a translation, Singer was your man. The sad drunk thing was mostly a useful front.

Nor did he twitch when the guy who climbed out of the cab barely looked old enough to drink the holy water-laced beer Bobby intended to offer him (despite the fact it was barely past breakfast time – 'Sun's over the yardarm somewhere', as John Winchester was fond of saying). It was hardly unusual; Hunters often started young, and usually died young.

What did make him frown in suspicion was the way his dog reacted.

Or rather, the way his dog didn't react.

From the time his wife had been possessed, he'd found that his dogs had been invaluable judges of character – Rumsfeld's predecessor, Rumsfeld, had been protective of Karen to the point of savagery towards anybody who looked at her for too long, which is why he had been so confused on that awful night by the dog's suddenly trying to turn on her. Now, unless he knew he was expecting company, Rumsfeld was always on watch in the yard, from his favourite vantage point on the hood of the truck. It was his job to mind the yard, to bark a warning at anyone's approach – Bobby could tell a lot about who was pulling into his yard by the tone of his dog's bark. Anyone unknown showed up, Rumsfeld would keep 'em by their vehicle until Bobby could decide whether or not to come out and call him off…

But now, the dog just stood there, staring at the young guy, whining.

The visitor froze, but not in fright, more in something Bobby couldn't quite place. Dog and human stared at each other.

Then Rumsfeld trotted forwards, tail waving, and whuffed a welcome.

Bobby watched, stunned, as the newcomer hunkered down, and stroked Rumsfeld's large head, before bowing his own head, not hugging the dog the way people hugged beloved pets, but nuzzling back at the Rottweiler, the way dogs do when they're greeting, or playing, or comforting each other.

The human stood, wiped at his eyes, took a deep breath, and headed for the house. Rumsfeld led the way, face grinning and tail waving, and announced the visitor with a happy bark.

When Bobby opened the door, he realised with a start that the Hunter standing before him was in fact a young woman, with a wary frown, eyes about a hundred years too old for the rest of her, and startling scarring running down the left side of a face that could not, frankly, have been called attractive to begin with. He wondered vaguely what monster had done that to her, and at what age; they were faded to the stark silver-pink of old injuries, incurred years ago.

"You Singer?" The brevity of the question gave Bobby enough to recognise an accent, but not place it.

"Who's askin'?" he replied, politely enough but with an undercurrent of warning to it.

"Shepherd," she replied. "I need ammo."

"This is a salvage yard," he told her, "There's a couple of gun shops in town that can help you," but she snorted in amusement.

"I need silver. I'm out. And I can't find anything that isn't crap." She gave him a hard look. "Word is, if anybody knows where to get hold of decent silver rounds, Bobby Singer does."

He gave her a long look, and made his decision. "Good ammo is hard to get, because it's hard to make," he handed her the laced beer, which she took and drank from immediately.

She pulled a face. "You Yanks can't brew beer to save yourselves, either," she grumbled. "So, you got a stash or a contact?"

He laughed at that. "Think you can do better?"

"Beer or ammo?" she asked. "The answer to both is, yes."

He looked doubtful. "Seriously? You cast your own?"

"Back home," her face became briefly… lost, then the shuttered, wary expression fell back into place. "Nowhere to do it, here."

"Kinda young to be doin' that sort of thing with any finesse," he remarked carefully.

"My Dad put the gas axe in my hands when I was eight," she told him, not boasting, just relaying facts, "The year after he started training me up. I got a talent with metalwork, Mr Singer."

"Huh, I should put you to work, then," he gruffed, "You any good?"

"I'm bloody good," she told him levelly, "I'd do a better job of anything I've seen here so far."

He laughed out loud. "Well, why don't you come on in," he chuckled, "And I'll show you what I've got, and you can tell me what crap it is, then take it because it's the best that's available for now, Shepherd."

He face broke into a genuine, beautiful smile that lit up her face, changing her appearance completely. "Veronica Claire Shepherd," she stuck out her hand, "Ronnie."

He shook her hand. "Well, then, Miss Ronnie Shepherd, what calibre were you lookin' for?"

He showed her what he had, and she pointed out the problems with the rounds, while he chuckled to himself, and wondered, _What's your story, missy? What's brought you to the other side of the world? What are you chasin'? Or what are you runnin' from?_

"You workin' a job?" he asked, as she handed over payment.

"Yeah, got somewhere to be," she replied, smiling down at Rumsfeld, who was pestering her for pats in a most unRumsfeldlike way.

"I'll give you my number," he told her, "If you're as good as you say you are, when you're done, come back, and you can strut your stuff. I'll pay you what you're worth." He paused. "You don't have a Hunt buddy, do ya?"

"No," she said, not looking at him. "Just me. There's just me."

He eyed her appraisingly. "You ever Hunt with dogs?"

Her head whipped around, an anguished look flitting across her face. "Yeah," she answered thickly, "Yeah, I did. A Heeler. They're good for the job; they're bred to herd large animals, go in with teeth if necessary, he was…" she broke off, and went back to patting Rumsfeld.

"Sit with him for a spell," Bobby instructed, "Before you go, let me make a call."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

Carol smiled sadly to herself; the wound on her arm didn't hurt as much as watching her husband search desperately for a solution to their little problem.

Well, their rather large problem, she corrected herself. He was massive for a ten week old pup. And his teeth, his damned _teeth_ were just not natural…

"It's happened before, Jack," she told him softly, watching as he scoured through pedigrees, journals and letters going back through his family to the founding of the kennel.

He sat back, and scrubbed his hands over his face. "I know," he sighed, "It's just… I got no idea what happened. Shiraz has impeccable bloodlines, and her last litter have all grown into magnificent Hunters, and Conan, well," he smiled, "He's the best stud dog this place has seen in a generation." He turned a sad face to her. "What went wrong, Carol?" he asked. "He's the only male in the litter. Does that mean something?"

"What it means," she told him with mock sternness, "Is that the genetics of this line don't work according to the usual rules." She jerked a thumb at a yellowing framed photo on the study wall, with the name ARCADIA picked out in gold. "You can't tell me she was a pedigree Shepherd, and as for the story about her first mating, well…"

"Great-Grandpa Earl was as sober as they come," Jack repeated the family history, "An educated man, a man of science, not given to exaggeration, before he turned to Hunting. Given his observations…" Few Hunters, even those who worked with Wildhunt dogs, truly believed the story about the founding bitch Arcadia forcing herself on a Hellhound, but given the occasional throwbacks that the breeding saw…"Ah, shit, Carol, what am I supposed to do?"

She recognized the question as rhetorical, and put a hand on his shoulder. "It's nobody's fault, Jack. It's like any birth defect, they can happen in the best of bloodlines…"

"You're calling that a birth defect?" he sounded incredulous. "Carol, he savaged you! He's ten weeks old, he's done nothing but try to attack the Hunters I've introduced him to, and he tried to tear your arm off!"

"But he didn't," she told him firmly.

"I've tried everything that was tried on the other throwbacks," he reminded her, "Nothing works. Singer even suggested I try an exorcism…"

"He's not possessed, Jack," Carol chuckled, "He's just… different."

"I should've drowned him when he was born," he growled.

"You couldn't have done that, even if you'd known then," his wife smiled, "Not you. Not without giving him a chance."

"How many chances do we give him, Carol?" he asked plaintively.

The last pup of the S litter had nearly killed his dam, because of his sheer size – his shoulders barely made it out. And an ugly little thing he was, too: his litter sisters were adorable, fluffy bundles of cuteness, but #5 was roach-backed, with an overlarge head and heavy jaw, almost deformed, and ugly as sin. His dam had rejected him soon after, when he began to bully his litter sisters before the pups' eyes opened. Carol had hand-raised him, given him round the clock care and nurturing. As he grew, #5 went from anti-social to standoffish to, well, savage – he didn't play, he didn't respond to the most basic training. An attempt to let his sire discipline him had nearly ended in disaster when the whelp had managed to bury his teeth in Conan's ruff, going for his throat.

Attempting to savage Carol had, for Jack, been the last straw.

"He's got too much of the Blood," Jack stated.

"It's what makes them such good Hunter's dogs," Carol countered.

"Carol, he's not going to choose a Hunter," he said bluntly. "He's had half a dozen to pick from, Singer vetted the last three, and he's done nothing but snarl at all of them. He's not safe," he went on more gently, "What happens if he gets out, and really hurts somebody? What the hell is he going to grow into? I know you're disappointed but… tomorrow I'm going to put him down. Huh, if I can. Maybe I should use consecrated iron." He sighed again. "He's not happy, either, you can see it. He's stuck between two worlds – he doesn't know if he's a Hunter, or a Hellhound, and it's driving him mad. It's for the best…"

The phone rang at that point, and Carol answered it. The conversation was brief, and to the point.

"Singer", she announced, "Says he has a Hunter for Number Five."

Jack scowled, and took the phone. "We don't have a dog to offer," he said without preamble, "Shiraz's litter have all Chosen, and the only one left, I've told you, he aint a dog..."

"I know, I know, he's a monster. Weeeeell, I got a feelin' this one might be worth a shot," Bobby told him. "Got the Rumsfeld tick of approval, that has to count for something."

"I can't take the risk," Jack said into the phone. "I'm telling you Bobby, this animal isn't safe. He isn't… normal."

"Heh heh, you know, that's pretty much what I found myself thinkin' the minute this body washed up on my doorstep," Bobby chortled. "There's somethin' different about this one. No idea what exactly, but, well, can you just hold on for a couple of days?"

"I'm not sure I can," Jack went on grimly, "The little bastard tried to maul Carol this morning…"

"Jack, I know it'll break your heart to put him down," Bobby said softly. "It's a long shot, but if it's the last one you got…"

Jack let out a long breath. "Okay," he agreed finally, "Okay, but if this guy doesn't take him, I gotta do this. Hmmmm? What? You're shitting me. You can't be serious! I'm not turning this thing over to some kid!... Christ, Singer, the drink is affecting your brain. Yeah, yeah, all right, but I'll be standing by with the gun. And consecrated iron rounds." He cut the call. "He's finally going nuts," he griped to his wife, "He's suggesting that I hand over that, that, creature to a girl who's barely an adult!"

"He's got good instincts for these things," she reminded him. "And so does Rumsfeld. Please, Jack."

"Well, seeing as you're going to double-team me until I say yes," he humphed, "I'll give it a day or two. But that's all. He just doesn't like people, Carol. Got no respect for human beings. God knows what he'd grow into, he's got feet like saucers, and the thought of him getting his adult teeth just scares the crap out of me." He closed the pedigree book he'd been scouring. "I'll wait, but I don't hold out much hope."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

"Fuck it!"

Almost weeping with pain, she pulled at the end of the thin silver chain where it was wrapped around her arm. The flesh was swollen, red and oozing, cracking through old scarring; she told herself that the stench of burning skin was just in her imagination. The fact that the shiny metal was seared into her arm, so that she had to pull it free, though, that was real, and there was nothing for it but to tear it out of the swollen tissue…

"AaaaaAAAAAA _SHIT_!"

Her voice rose to a shriek as the jewellery came free. Her stomach roiled, partly at the pain and partly at the sight of the crusted chunks of scabbed skin adhering to it.

It wasn't strictly necessary for her to use the small necklace any more. By the time she was twenty, she had learned to stop the shapeshift at the full moon, and then she'd learned to retain her human awareness if she did shift. Lately, she'd even discovered that she could wolf out at any time, if she wanted to. She had it under control; but she had found herself battling the wolf within for the last few months

_You're losing it_

and had used the chain again just as a precaution when she felt the pull of the moon, calling to her blood

_You're losing it_

to make sure that she didn't do anything that would get somebody and then herself killed.

It was to be expected, she supposed; she was still pretty new to this country, and she wasn't completely sure that she'd thrown her father off her trail

_You should've killed him_

although she thought she'd made as good a job of faking your own death as you can when you don't have an evil identical twin to leave behind

_He killed your sister, and he'll kill you too because he's a Hunter, you should've killed him_

as a twitching corpse as a convenient decoy.

_You should've killed him and now you're losing it_

With a snarl that sounded not quite entirely human, she threw the chain across the not-even-one-star room, where it stuck to the peeling wallpaper. She glimpsed her face in the cracked, roach-speckled mirror. The puckered gouging scars on her face were faded now, more pale red than livid scarlet. That made it difficult, sometimes. A Hunter depended on being able to fade into the background, and be unmemorable.

She'd never fit into the background completely to start with, of course. Hunters never did. But this country was big, in area and population, and was literally a world away from the life she'd had to leave behind

_You should've killed him_

which is what had attracted her to the US. She could lose herself in this place

_You are already lost_

and that would be crucial to her survival

_You are lost_

provided she survived, of course, but nobody knew her here, she broke the pattern, and nobody had any reason to come after her

_You are a monster_

and provided she didn't kill, she wouldn't give anybody a reason.

_You have no Pack_

Gritting her teeth, she ratted through her scuffed duffel for the first aid kit. As she pulled it out, a faded photograph came with it.

It showed a Blue Heeler, wearing a blue sash, sitting at the side of a grinning… it was not easy to tell the sex of the child immediately, but a moment's consideration of the astonishing smile that lit up the not-terribly-attractive face marked it as female. A tweenage girl, then, with her dog.

"Diesel," she whispered.

_You have no Pack_

With a dexterity borne of much practice, she opened the surprisingly well stocked kit, and carefully began to clean out then dress the wound. She kept a small tube of silvadene burn cream in there, for appearance's sake, just in case another Hunter ever looked, but didn't use it – experience told her that she would heal up remarkably well, given that if she presented at an Emergency room, she'd be treated for third degree chemical burns.

Just another advantage of the whole catastrophe, she told herself with a humourless chuckle, along with the lovely warm fur coat and the nail extensions that any supermodel would die for…

Her eye fell on the scrap of paper that had been folded with the photograph. A name, and an address. Singer had given it to her.

It was his dog that had brought her up short, a middle-aged Rottweiler. Watching the yard, alert and assertive, like he owned the place. Which, from a canine point of view, he did.

The dog had looked her up and down, then wagged his tail, trotted to her, and gave her a friendly whuff that was on the cusp of her understanding.

_I greet you, Hunter._

She's smiled, and crouched to scratch his ears, knowing that she'd come to the right place.

_I greet you, Guardian. I seek your Alpha._

He'd butted against her for more attention, just the way Diesel had done, from the day her father had placed the wiggling, yipping little brindled bundle of energy in her arms, then led her to the house.

The ammo he had wasn't bad, but she knew she could do better, and told him so – the conviction in her voice had made him chuckle – but there was no way for her to cast her own, so she paid up, and thanked him. She'd give some consideration to his offer of work, but she'd have to think it over; she'd have to be doubly careful now, working with silver.

Then, she'd waited on the porch while he'd made a call, debating about whether or not to make a run for it in case he was calling back-up.

_You have no Pack_

The dog head was cocked in empathy, and concern. She drew in a sharp breath. What could she say to that?

_I… have no Pack, _she agreed, watching the house door. Was it that obvious?

Rumsfeld had whined a little, a combination of sympathy and encouragement, and butted against her reassuringly. _Find your Pack,_ he advised, like an Elder instructing a juvenile. _Hunt with your Pack. It is the way of things._

And so she'd waited, just enjoying the dog's reassuring presence and company, until Singer re-emerged, and gave her a location and a name.

Wildhunt.

She turned the paper over again, and shoved it into a pocket, then switched on the small black and white television, just for background noise. She'd go, but she needed to rest after a long, sleepless, and bloody painful night…

The time and date announcement made her blink with disbelief. She'd lost track again.

"Well whaddya know," she told the dog in the photograph, "As of today, I'm legally allowed to drink in this country."

Then she felt silly, because Diesel had to be dead by now; the old dog was near-blind and arthritic when she'd been bitten, but he'd managed a last tail-wag when she'd said goodbye then taken a bag and slipped away from her family and her home and run for her life

_You're losing it_

so she pulled a bottle of dark rum from her duffel

_What are you?_

cracked the cap and took a long drink

_Hunter? Monster?_

and toasted his memory.

_You have no Pack_

She hoped it was true that all dogs went to Heaven. Even if she feared that meant that she'd never see him again.

_What are you?_

You're just tired, she told herself, remember what it was like when you first started trying to control it? The thing with the silver was always exhausting. Get some rest.

_You have no Pack_

She curled up on the thin synthetic bedspread, ignoring the smell of cigarette smoke and cheap sex, and cried as quietly as she could.

An hour later, she headed north, the faded photograph on the dash grinning back at her.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

Shiraz wagged her tail when Carol approached with her breakfast. Now her pups had left, she was putting condition back on. A fine animal. The S litter had been her second, so they could've bred her one more time, but given what had happened last time, it was a chance they wouldn't take. It was a shame, really.

The dogs were waiting by the fencing of their pens, tails waving and happy faces awaiting their food. Conan did the 'happy helicopter dance' he'd been doing every time he saw her, since he was a puppy – it still made her laugh. In fact, it was even funnier when an adult male German Shepherd did it.

"You that hungry, huh?" she laughed, as he woofed, then sat politely while his bowl was put down for him.

She approached the last pen in the row with a mixture of hope and sadness. It wasn't his fault, it really wasn't, she mused, pulling on the gauntlets she'd taken to using when going near him, if they could just find a Hunter who could manage him…

"Hey, Fiver, guess what?" she called to the pup, "We got someone coming to meet you! Maybe you can…"

Her gaze fell on the fencing, where the post looked as thought it had been gnawed through by an angry chain-saw. The pen was empty.

She dropped the bowl, and ran back to the house.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

It looked almost like any other kennel, except for the signs only a Hunter would notice: the charms, the sigils, the wards protecting the place. Ronnie paused at the gateway, then drove in.

She climbed out of the truck to be greeted by a sight that made her blood run cold; a grim-faced man came striding towards her with a hunting rifle. Did he know? How the hell could he know? Had this been Singer's idea all along?

She was reaching for her own gun when he addressed her without preamble.

"Ronnie! You Ronnie Shepherd?"

She nodded warily. "Jack Schiffer?"

He nodded sharply. "Don't move! We got a dog on the loose, a bad one, he's... not right – he'll take a piece out of you as soon as look at you. Get back in, and stay there until..."

There was a growl from the undergrowth to the left.

The middle-aged man drew a bead on the vegetation.

She could feel the eyes watching her, and heard the uncertainty in the growl. She didn't understand exactly what it was saying – _Blood of the Pit, Blood of the Pit, I have no Pack..._ – but she did understand the sentiment behind it.

It wasn't a monster. It was a pup, and a frightened one. Frightened of the man – but mostly frightened of himself.

"Get behind me," Jack instructed, "I'm sorry you hafta see this, but when you see this thing, you'll understand..."

A black streak shot from its concealment, heading straight for them.

"NO!" she yelled, knocking his elbow as she dived at the small blurred shape.

She grabbed onto something furry, and rolled with the momentum it had. There were teeth, there was snarling, and she came up holding a slavering pup by the scruff.

Whatever it was, she wasn't going to take that sort of defiance from a damned puppy.

"Enough!" she snapped, needing the strength of the wolf to hang on and give him a shake, "Enough!"

_Blood of the Pit! _ the pup snarled, writhing and slavering, _Blood of the Pit! This is not my Pack!_

Carefully, she let the undertones of the wolf creep into her voice.

"Enough!"_ Submit! I am Alpha here! I AM ALPHA! _she finished with a snarl to match his own.

With a yelp, the pup quieted, and she got a good look at him.

He was... not pretty. But he was...

Moving slowly, she put him down, and knelt. Werewolf and pup stared at each other, sizing each other up.

Ronnie let the lupine mind rise, and looked at him, not just as he was, but _what _he was, and what he would become...

And she _saw_.

_Hunter's dog,_ she whuffed to him, _You are a Hunter's dog, there is no doubt. You will grow. You will be magnificent._

_I am... a Hunter's dog,_ he growled back, as if tasting the idea.

_Such a dog,_ she crooned to him, _Such a dog you will be, a credit to your line._

_I am a Hunter's dog,_ he sounded more certain, staring right back at her. _You are... different. You are not... like them. _He cocked his head._ Where is your Pack?_

_I... have no Pack,_ she admitted, warily watching Jack, who still held the rifle trained on the pup. _Because I am... different. You understand?_

_But you are a Hunter_, he yipped with certainty.

Then, for the first time in his life, Number Five broke into a doggy smile as if he'd just had the best idea in the world.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

Jack could hear Carol grinning as she came up behind him.

"What the hell's going on?" he asked her, indicating where the scar-faced kid was having some sort of staring match with the throwback.

"What do you think?" she thwacked his arm. "Put that thing down. Don't interrupt."

"I don't like it," he muttered, "If it changes its mind, I can't get a clear shot in with her that close..."

Simultaneously, the puppy broke into a doggy smile, and the Hunter's scarred face lit up with an answering one of her own.

Number Five pounced.

Ronnie grabbed him up and hugged him, laughing, as he wagged his tail, and kissed her nose, behaving for all the world like a normal puppy.

"Well, slap my ass and call me Shirley," breathed Jack. "He's actually Chosen her."

"They've chosen each other," Carol smiled, "We've been expecting you," she told Ronnie, "And I'm so glad he's found his Hunter."

"Me too," the young woman beamed, as her new best friend stuck his tongue in her ear. "Ewwww!"

"Why don't you come on inside, and I'll get his papers for you," Carol ushered them both indoors.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

"He needs a name," Carol beamed indulgently at the pup, who sat quietly in his newly chosen Hunter's lap, sniffing hopefully for a crumb of cookie. "A proper name. 'Fiver' is too Watership Down."

Ronnie and the pup kept staring at each other, clearly besotted with what they saw. The puppy glanced longingly at the cookie, and Carol had to laugh as he tried out the Big Brown Eyes for the first time. "Are they really descended from a Hellhound?" Ronnie asked.

"That's how the story goes," confirmed Jack, "And looking at this little guy, and pictures of earlier throwbacks, it's hard to dismiss out of hand."

"What's your name, huh?" Ronnie asked the pup in a low voice, "What do I call you?"

"It'll come," Carol assured her, "The right name will suggest itself soon enough."

"Fang, maybe," huffed Jack. "God, those teeth! Chainsaw? Jaws? Sharkey?"

Ronnie glanced at the sheaf of paper with the puppy's pedigree at the top. _Wildhunt Shark Attack. _ "No, not Sharkey," she mused. She frowned in thought, then smiled. "Mako," she decided, "His name is Mako."

At the sound, Mako looked up from his cookie piece, ears pricked, as if he was any pup being adopted.

"Mako it is," Carol nodded, "I'll enter it in the records. Now, I'll get you a collar and a lead for him..."

"I've got these," Ronnie forestalled her, pulling worn leather from her pocket. "This was... this was Diesel's puppy collar. I kept it, in case one day... " she slid it over Mako's head. "It's not gunna fit you for long, you big freak," she chided him fondly.

She thanked them for the coffee and the cookie, and stood to leave. "Thank you," she smiled, "Thank you for giving him – and me – a chance."

Jack looked worried as she headed back to her truck. "Look, I know it's none o' my business," he began, "But, well, you're a young'un to be on your own. Hunting solo is dangerous enough for a veteran. Do you have a Hunt buddy lined up?"

Ronnie flashed him that smile again, and he thought to himself, _One day, young lady, one day, some guy will see past the outside, and that smile will take his breath away, just you wait..._ "I do now," she told him, looking down at Mako.

"Well, then, there's just one more thing to do before you go," Carol told her, holding up a Polaroid camera. "A picture for the wall – so, both of you, smile!"

They did. She took one for Ronnie, and one for the kennel.

It joined the dozens of others on the study wall, an ever-growing collection of happy moments when Hunters found their dogs, a collage of smiling faces, grinning muzzles and lolling tongues. But that one was special; for the following twenty years, Carol made sure it was always in the top layer, with two youngsters smiling out at the world as though it was just waiting for them to tackle it.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...**

Ronnie didn't find a motel that night; she found an isolated spot in a wooded area, and parked the truck, then when the full moon rose, she didn't bother to fight the call of the wolf; she let the shapeshift happen, embraced it, while Mako watched, entranced.

_Alpha!_ he yipped in excitement. _Alpha! My Pack!_

_Our Pack_, she agreed, dropping to all fours in a play bow, which he copied.

_Play! _ He sprang at her, and they grappled, rolling across the green ground, until Mako ran out of energy the way puppies do, and flopped down beside her, yawning.

_Sleep, then,_ she decided, springing into the bed of her truck and curling around him, pulling the tarp over them.

_I den with my Pack,_ he sighed contentedly, _With my Alpha._

_I den with my Pack,_ she echoed. _Tell me of your line. What is the Blood of the Pit?_

Mako cocked his head, as if remembering stories he had heard when almost too young to remember them.

_There was a bitch who was called to the Hunt, _he began_, She left the wild, and Chose a Hunter. She was savage and fearless. She defended her Hunter, and fought beside him. When her breeding time came, she confronted the Beast of the Pit, and goaded him, faced him down, demanded his blood for her line..._

_Your.. ancestor bred with a Hellhound? _ she queried.

He whuffed an affirmative._ She took his blood for her line, and whelped a single bitch-pup. That bitch-pup was my LongDam, and she gave her Blood to my line. She made us Hunter's dogs. We are savage and fearless, and we defend our Hunters. This is the way of things. _He wriggled happily beside her._ We are strong, and happy! _he barked_, We will grow, and we will Hunt!_

_I don't need to grow any more,_ she panted in amusement,_ I'm big already._

_You are not Elder yet,_ he yipped cheekily.

_I am Alpha, _she rumbled.

_You are Alpha,_ he agreed, stilling beside her. _We will grow, and we will Hunt._

She couldn't wipe the contented smile off her muzzle. _We are strong, and happy, and we will Hunt. _ He had made her believe it. So, life had handed her a great big hairy lemon. She was a frigging Hunter. It just gave her more weapons to use. With Mako at her side, she would turn every fugly she could find into fucking lemonade.

The pup sighed and rested against her, radiating contentment. _It is the way of things,_ he sighed sleepily.

She rested her huge paw over him, and he snuggled underneath it. Yes, she thought, it would be the way of things.

* * *

The idea of a story of Ronnie and Andrew's wedding, and the Winchester/Singer involvement, would have to be an entire story by itself, maybe called something like 'Here Comes The Snide'. A Hunt nearly derailing the entire occasion... Keeping the Hunt, AND The Big Hairy Secret, from Andrew's family... Great Aunts Sadie and Dotsie... The Buck's Night a la Dean... The Hen's Night a la Sam... Cas reprising his role as Honorary Bridesmaid, talking about his 'profound bond' with Dean... Bobby giving the bride away... Doggy attendants... Becky pinching Chuck's manuscript, squeeing, and presenting herself on the day as a bridesmaid to be Sam's date for the occasion... it could all get Very Silly Indeed.

Now, which bunny to squelch next? And what do we name Sam's daughter? Hmmmm...


	7. What's In A Name?

**Everybody wants to know:**

_WHAT'S SAM'S DAUGHTER'S NAME? ? ? ! ! !_

Denizens. They has teh pushy.

* * *

**What's In A Name?**

Dean was having a crawling race with RJ – and letting the kid win, of course – when he heard the Impala rumble back into the yard.

"Hey, Tiger, Uncle Sammy's back!" he enthused. RJ turned around, sat up, and giggled, holding out his arms to be picked up. "Yeah, me too," agreed Dean, "Let's see how it went. He's back far too early for my liking."

"I'm back!" Sam called from the kitchen. Dean brought RJ in, and the boy shrieked happily in greeting. "Hey, did you miss me?" asked Sam, smiling, as RJ reached up to pat his face and blow a raspberry of welcome. "Wow, I don't get a reception like that from your Dad unless I got beer and pie. Speaking of which," he put down a paper bag. "Before you start whining, apple and blueberry."

"Look at the time, Sam," chided Dean, jiggling RJ, as the boy cooed in curiosity and reached toward the pie. "What time do you call this to be back?"

"Gee whiz, I'm sorry, Dad," Sam rolled his eyes, "When I told you I'd be taking Kelly to lunch, and you did that obscene thing with your eyebrows, I thought I had the Dean waggle of approval to spend an hour or so out of the house, in fact, when you found out I intended to spend time in the company of a member of the opposite sex you practically pushed me out the door..."

"No, no, no," Dean cut him off, "What I want to know is, why are you back so early?"

Sam blinked at him. "Uh, because, we had lunch, and then we finished?"

Dean sighed. "Sam, what am I supposed to do with you?" he asked wistfully. "You could've had all the me-time you needed, you could've gone back to where she's staying, you could've spent a pleasant afternoon engaging in beautiful natural acts..."

"Dean..."

"At least two rounds, of course, you're a Winchester, and you're not doin' it right if you don't make her toes curl at least twice..."

"Dean..."

"I would've understood, dude, all you had to do was text, you could've had the car for as long as you needed, the longer the better..."

"Dean," Sam cut in through clenched teeth, "It was just lunch! It was only ever just lunch! Jesus, she's six months pregnant!"

"A lot of women experience increased libido in their second trimester," Dean's eyebrows did the waggle of approval, "And it's not like you'd have to worry about getting her knocked up..."

"Dean!" snapped Sam, "Just shut up, you depraved perve!"

Dean looked taken aback. "I'm disappointed to hear you say that, Sam," he said, "The pregnant female body can be a beautiful, curvaceous, voluptuous thing, all round and soft, and totally female, with that whole sex-fertility goddess vibe happening. There was this chick in Ohio, once, her asshole boyfriend had got her knocked up then shot through, and she decided she might as well enjoy it while she could because she wouldn't even have time to scratch herself once the kid arrived, so we..."

"Gah!" Sam skewered his brother with a Bitchface #6™ (I SO Do NOT Want To Hear The Gory Details Of One Of Your Sexual Conquests, Jerk). "So! Not! Interested!"

"Well, if you won't do the right thing by the woman who's going to be the mother of your child," Dean sniffed disdainfully, "I don't know, Sam, I just don't know what to do."

"It was just lunch," Sam scowled, "Lunch, as in, sit down and eat a meal together, and talk."

"As in, like a date?" Dean waggled his eyebrows.

Sam's face pinked. "Just... lunch," he repeated. "She actually joked about the sex thing. Says she's been feeling about as attractive as a beached whale."

"So, you get a nice room, and you do it in the spa!" chirped Dean, his expression like that of a school pupil who's just answered a question perfectly and is expecting a gold star. "And you can be, like, the Greenpeace hero, come to save her from slow death, and you float her out to deeper water, then she shows you her gratitude, then..."

"I'm not sure where the line between kinky and perverted is," Sam griped, "But I can't help wondering if role-playing human-cetacean bestiality is on the side where I don't want to be."

"Well, if you talked, what did you talk about?" asked Dean, starting on reheating RJ's next feed.

"Well, lots of things," Sam shrugged, and headed for the coffee pot. "We like the same sort of reading, and we were both traumatised at school by having to dissect 'To Kill A Mockingbird' until we almost ended up hating it." He smiled a little shyly. "She reminds me of Jess, in a lot of ways."

"Great," grumped Dean glumly, "My little brother goes on a date, and he talks about literature. How the fuck you ever bred is beyond me."

"There was other stuff, too," Sam glared at him. "About, you know, the baby." He gulped. "She, uh, asked me to be her, um, support person. At the birth."

"Yeah?" Dean smiled. "Wow! That's a serious vote of confidence, dude! I gotta warn you, though, it's gross – you remember how Ronnie had Connor in my car? There's screaming, and hand crushing, and this gloopy stuff, although I guess at least you don't have to worry about Kelly turning into a six-foot-plus fugly at the dramatic moment."

"Uh, no, no, that's true," Sam gulped. "And we, uh, we talked about names."

"And?" prompted Dean.

"Well," Sam bit his lip, "Kelly wants it – her – to take my name. Be a Winchester. To show that I've acknowledged her as mine." He smiled, dimples showing. "She's got a bit of a traditional streak in her, I think."

"Cool!" Dean grinned, "An official cousin for RJ! What about a first name? You can't call her 'Hey You', or just 'Baby Winchester', she's gotta have a name waitin' when she arrives."

"Yeah, we talked about that, too," Sam nodded, "And we thought it would be nice to name her for Mom, and for Kelly's grandmother, who passed away last year, because she was close to her grandmother, and spent a lot of time with her as a kid."

"Oh, God," Dean's grin faltered, "Please don't tell me that Grandma had one of those awful oldey-worldey names that sounds like something out of a historical movie. I couldn't cope with a niece called Muriel. Or Maude. Or Mavis."

"No, it's nothing like that," Sam assured him.

"Or Ethyl. Or Bertha," Dean screwed up his face, "Or Gladys. Or Wilhelmina. Or Clementine. Or Brunhilda. You don't want the kid to sound like a grandmother, a schoolmarm or a cow before she's even born."

"No, Dean, it's not..."

"And nothing freaky from mythology," Dean specified, "No Guinevere, no Olympia, no Clytemnestra, that's just cruel, there was a girl called Clytemmnestra in my English class at high school, once, and of course it got shortened to Clitty..."

"It's not like that..."

"Oh, no, her grandmother wasn't one of those weird-ass happy-clappy hippies from the 60s, was she?" Dean looked panicked. "Changed her perfectly ordinary name to something freaky, like Sunspot, or Seafrolic, or Moondust Unicorn I-Shit-Rainbows?"

"Dean!" Sam yelped with an exasperated _Bitchface_ #8™ (You Are Now Officially Talking Complete Shit, Dean). "Shut! Up! It's a perfectly ordinary name, it's not freaky, it's not weird, it doesn't hint vaguely at genitalia, so just calm down, and shut up!"

"Well, that's good," Dean nodded, smiling at RJ a the boy gurgled happily around his bottle. "So, what will Little Miss Winchester be named?"

Sam's face turned pink again.

"Uh, wouldn't you rather have a surprise when she's born?" he asked hopefully.

"No, I wanna know now," Dean replied, "So I know what name to put on the first hip flask I buy for her."

"Jerk," muttered Sam.

"Well?" Dean looked at him expectantly.

Sam mumbled something.

"What was that?" Dean pressed.

" 'rssmry," Sam mumbled.

"A bit louder, for those of us who don't read minds?" suggested Dean.

" 'rssmry," Sam mumbled again, a tenth of a decibel louder.

"Aaaaaand once more, with some vowels this time?" Dean prompted.

"Frances Mary, okay?" Sam glared at him. "My daughter will be named Frances Mary. For her great-grandmother, and her grandmother. Frances Mary. It's a pretty name."

"It is, Sam," Dean chuckled, "It totally is."

"Frances. With an 'e'. It's the feminine form."

"Just sounds the same, huh?" Dean's grin was positively evil.

"Kelly is very happy with it," Sam told him a bit snippily. "And so am I."

"Oh, you should be," Dean beamed, "Frances. It's a lovely name, for a girl."

"So, now you know," Sam huffed.

"Yup," nodded Dean, "Now I know. Frances Mary Winchester. I like it."

"Well, good."

"A little bit vintage, a little bit classy, and, as you point out, a pretty name."

"Yeah."

"And she'll be able to have a nickname, if she wants one – Frankie, or Frank, or she can be Frances, or Fran, or Frannie, whatever she prefers when she gets old enough to understand that sort of thing."

"Right."

"Frances Mary Winchester doesn't sound like somebody you wanna mess with, either. And it'll be good if you have to yell it out loud when she's doing something naughty, you know, how parents use your whole name when they're angry at you, like, 'Frances Mary Winchester, you put that boy down immediately!'."

"Dean..."

"It's a good name, Sam," Dean nudged his brother as he fed his own son. "And it's kinda nice to name kids after their relatives. Like RJ." He smiled dotingly at the boy in his arms, feeding contentedly and gazing back into his father's loving eyes. "We'll explain to her, when she's older, that she's been named after some special people."

"Yeah," Sam smiled, "Yeah, she has."

"Totally," Dean smiled too. "What a lucky girl, named after so many relatives: her grandmother, her great-grandmother – and her father."

"Jerk."

"Hey, wanna see our new trick? Whaddya say, RJ, will be show Uncle Sammy our new trick?" RJ gurgled, and kicked his feet in excitement at the tone of his father's voice. Dean changed his hold on the bottle, and RJ's little hands came up to grasp at it. "You got it, buddy? Aaaaaand..." he took his hand away. RJ held the bottle on his own, and continued to drink. "Ta-daaaaah!"

"He's your kid, Dean," Sam rolled his eyes, "He was always going to be able to hold a bottle to drink from at a young age."

"So now, it's one more thing we can do together!" enthused Dean, carefully making his way to the refrigerator, getting out a beer, and opening it one-handed on the second try. "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, those bottle buddies, that tippling twosome, the amazing, the awesome, Simultaneously Drinking Winchesters!"

He drank from his own bottle, then beamed his most winning smile.

Sam facepalmed.

"Did I hear Sam come back?" asked Bobby, making his way into the kitchen, "Ah, so I did, so, how did lunch... DEAN BASIL WINCHESTER WHAT IN BLAZES DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOIN'?!"

* * *

We found out about Dean's Jimiverse middle name at the end of 'Pack Up Your Troubles'. He still hates it.

So, there you are. Frances Mary. Kudos to **klu** for seeing it coming.

Right, which one's next? *peers thoughtfully at fuzzy little bastards milling around nibbling on reviews*


	8. In Dear Old Pixieland

**LucyK9 wrote:**

_Would you be interested in a plot bunny named Clementine? She whispers about a younger Bobby attempting to complete a hunt with the questionable aid of two younger Winchesters. John has peripheral involvement. A wringer washing machine plays an important role._

Well, I thought it was Clementine the bunny who hopped out of the laptop as I opened it, kicked Stewie (the plot bunny currently dictating 'I Love To Go A-Wandering') in the nuts and demanded that I listen to what she has to say. However, as she dictated she kind of transmogrified, I'm afraid, and I fear that I was in fact waylaid by Clementine's evil twin sister, Desdemona, who hijacked this fic. It ended up about Dean's son and Sam's daughter, but Bobby is there. He says 'idjit'. Of course, if dear sweet shy and demure little Clementine does show up, I'll give her a hearing too, but Dezzie has her teeth in my leg, and must be stomped…

I had trouble coming up with a suitable title for this one, and would be happy for anybody else to suggest an alternative. Meanwhile, I'm calling it:

* * *

**Pick Me Up And Lay Me Down In Dear Old Pixieland.**

_She watched them from a distance, noting with a stab of satisfaction that they had only the old man to watch them._

_They were amusing themselves outdoors, which was exactly the opportunity she'd been waiting for. She knew she'd never make it into the house – it was tightly warded – and that was the mistake that others had made. _

_Lots of others. They had tried, and they had failed. The problem with them was, they didn't think. They saw the fortifications, physical and occult, and thought about ways to get through them, ways to get past them – ways to get past him – ways to breach them. Inevitably, they got their asses handed to them. They didn't think. They were so stupid it made her head ache. _

_But she had thought. Oh, yes, she'd had many long years to think. Mostly, about revenge._

_Why try to tiptoe through a minefield when you could just knock on the front door? When childish games offered a perfect strategy? Why a full frontal assault, when you could simply arrange to be invited in?_

_None of the scenarios she'd envisaged, fantasised about, had ever included the possibility that they might breed. Which made it even more delicious._

_So, first their brats, then the sad old drunk, and then, and then..._

_She smiled to herself, eyes flashing black in anticipation, and watched, and thought, and planned._

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

"Unus, duo, tria, quattuor..." Nine-year-old Frances Mary Winchester sang as she skipped with the faded but still perfectly serviceable hula hoop dug out of some pile of junk at Singer Salvage. It was one of her very favourite playthings.

"Tres," Bobby corrected her automatically without looking up as he sorted through the grease-smeared containers on the bench, "Tria is the neuter form for things, remember? You use 'tres' if you're just countin', without actually countin' something."

"Unus, duo, tres, quattuor," she started again without missing a skip.

"Grandpa Bobby," her cousin RJ sounded confused. He was peering into the single cylinder engine, from a long-deceased lawnmower, which Bobby had given to him to take apart for educational purposes. "There's only two rings on the piston. And there's holes."

Bobby gave up his search, and moved to the bench where RJ stood on a box, wrench still in hand. "What you've got there is a two-stroke engine," he smiled at the boy, taking the opportunity to rat through some cut off plastic oil bottles full of bits and pieces. "They only have two rings, generally."

"Why don't they have three, like the car?" RJ wanted to know. Yup, thought Bobby, he was his father's son.

"Well, you know how the car runs on the four-stroke cycle," Bobby reminded him.

"Intake, compression, power stroke, exhaust," recited RJ without hesitation. "Suck, squeeze, bang, blow."

"Exactly," Bobby nodded, making a mental note to have a word to Dean about the timbre of terminology he used in front of a ten-year-old who missed absolutely nothing. "Well, a two-stroke engine does it all in one rotation of the crank, instead of two. One up stroke, one down stroke."

"How?" demanded RJ. "And where are the valves?"

"Okay," grinned Bobby, "It's really different. For a start, the fuel comes in through the crank, which is what the ports, they're the holes in the piston, are for..."

He gave the boy who was to all intents and purposes his grandson an introduction to the basics of the two-stroke cycle. His as-good-as-granddaughter wandered over to tune in to Channel Bobby too.

"Can you make that one go?" she asked, standing on her toes to try to peer into the bore.

"Not this one, no," Bobby told her, "It's real old, and would need some replacement parts. See this gap in the oil ring, for starters. The ring is creased – see how it wiggles? – and it won't seal properly."

"Dad says getting the rings gapped properly is half the job," RJ intoned. "Dad says those things are a frigging bitch to gap properly."

"Yeah, well, your Dad says a lot," muttered Bobby, having a last look through the odds-and-ends containers. "Damned shed pixies," he added.

"What's shed pixies?" asked Frances, "Are they like fairies?"

"Dad says fairies are evil tinkly little fuckers," supplied RJ, "And they should be..."

"Remind me to sew your Dad's mouth shut when he gets back," grumped Bobby. "Shed pixies are just something that my older brother made up, when I was about your age," he chuckled in recollection. "In a workshop, it's inevitable that small things – washers, nuts, bolts, shims, the occasional tool – will go missing. My brother used to blame the shed pixies. And it turned into a joke. Can't find the hammer? The shed pixies ate it. Milking bucket's got a hole? The shed pixies did it. A nut disappears from the bench when you turn your back for a minute? Blame the shed pixies. Heh heh, the poor little critters got blamed for just about everythin' that was a result of good ol'-fashioned human carelessness. I was just lookin' for a replacement for the nut to fix the washer. I thought I had a couple sittin' around, but when I couldn't find one, I just thought, well, must be those shed pixies again."

"Are you sure they're not real?" pressed RJ.

"Well, I've never seen one," Bobby replied.

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence," Frances declared rather loftily. "Like black swans."

"What have swans got to do with it, Francey?" demanded RJ.

"It's Frankie!" she snapped. "It means, just because you've never seen something, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. You can't prove that something doesn't exist. You can only prove that something does exist. By finding one. Like your brain," she added with a smirk.

"Well, I've been livin' and workin' here for a long time," Bobby shrugged, "So I'm pretty sure I haven't got pixies in my shed."

"Dad says you got bats in your belfry," RJ added helpfully.

"Does he now?" Bobby mused.

RJ nodded. "Although I don't know what a belfry is. I thought he meant the shed with the really high and pointy roof, but I've only ever seen pigeons, and the gargoyles get most of those."

"Well, I gotta find another one o' these," Bobby announced, "Because when your fathers get back, they will have a whole bunch of laundry to do. There seems to be some universal law stating that dealing with an angry spirit in a derelict house always involves somebody gettin' thrown into the fireplace, or the compost heap, or the puddle of stagnant gloop in the cellar, or all three."

"Dad says that you can get four wears out of a pair of shorts," RJ informed them.

"Dad says that Uncle Dean is disgusting and would live happily in a pig sty," Frankie piped up, "Except the pigs might object. I don't think he smells that bad, though. I think the pigs would probably be okay with it."

"Well, how about we go look for a washer, and I'll see if I can find what I'm after?" suggested Bobby.

"Yaaaaaay!" whooped the two children, excited at the prospect of fossicking in the yard. There were a couple of areas where they were not allowed to go except under adult supervision, and they always seemed to be the areas that had the most interesting stuff to look at. They'd probably be all right, Bobby thought – both of them could be remarkably sensible, given their parentage – but he figured that, as a grandparent, it was his prerogative to worry about them, and so the ban was imposed and enforced.

Techincally, the place operated as Singer Auto Salvage. However, the word 'salvage' was often just a polite way of saying 'junk yard', and there seemed to be a sort of nominative determinism at work. Because, junk there was. In quantity. Some of it, he wasn't even sure how it had gotten there. Car bodies, yes, other types of engine, yes, other vehicles, yes (he shuddered to think of the day when RJ would, just as his father did before him, find the carcass of a discarded trailbike assumed deceased, and manage to resurrect it – it was not a case of 'if', it was just a question of 'when'). Things that ran with engines, like lawnmowers and power tools, yes. But there was other stuff that just seemed to find its way there without apparent human intervention.

The washers, for a start. He'd taken one for the Widder Witherspoon, yes, and one of his, he'd run until it absolutely could not be repaired, and another he'd removed for Marcy, and of course there was the one that had been possessed, he'd been in a hurry to get that the hell out of that family's house. But they seemed more numerous than they should be. He wondered briefly if, given the occult nature of his place, they'd somehow started to breed. Maybe those shed pixies had branched out, diversified in the new century, to include appliance husbandry in their repertoire?

Of course, one man's trash was another man's treasure, or at least, another kid's absolutely engrossing object of interest.

"Here's one!" called RJ, waving him over to a battered white casing that still had most of the dial face showing. Bobby went over to investigate, but shook his head. "A bit smaller," he indicated the size of the thread.

There were plenty of distractions – Frankie found the remains of an elderly pram that she dragged from the junk, and RJ triumphantly brandished a water pistol (which, Bobby thought thankfully, looked too degraded to do much actual shooting of water), before they located what was needed. He was just removing the fitting when RJ let out a cry of excitement.

"Grandpa Bobby! What's this?"

Pocketing the part, Bobby made his way to where the kids were eagerly inspecting a crumbling remnant from an earlier era.

"What is this, Grandpa Bobby?" Frankie peered at the rusting gears.

"This?" he grinned broadly. "That is a called a mangle."

"Yeah?" RJ's face lit up at the idea of a piece of machinery that was just named for carnage. "What does it mangle?"

"It's a wringer, isn't it?" asked Frankie. "Like on really old washers."

"Indeed it is," Bobby nodded, "You use it to press the water out of wet clothes, so they'll rinse out better and dry quicker. My Ma had one, when I was a kid. She was always threatening to put us through it if we misbehaved."

RJ grabbed the handle, and tried to turn it. "It's stuck," he announced, peering at it.

"Probably seized up with rust," Bobby shrugged.

"Can we take it back to the shed?" begged RJ.

"I really don't think it'll be possible to..."

"Pleeeeease?" RJ pleaded.

Bobby sighed. It would probably keep the kid harmlessly occupied for hours, and his cousin too, the way she was trying to trace out the gearing. "Well, okay, but you gotta promise me you'll be careful, and you'll be sensible. This could hurt you badly if you mess around like idjits. Either of you tries to feed the other into it, I'll give you somethin' to really howl about, you hear me?"

"Yes, Grandpa Bobby," they chorused obediently.

The defunct pram, the water pistol, and the coveted mangle were taken back to the shed closest to the house, where they could amuse themselves and Bobby could keep an eye on them.

"Okay, then," he specified, "You wanna get this movin', you're gonna need the penetratin' oil, about a gallon of it, so..." his cell buzzed. "Singer," he barked into it. "Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Right. Yeah. Hmmmm, doesn't sound like a shapeshifter. Uh-huh. Hold on." He turned to the kids. "I gotta go look something up for somebody," he told them, "So you two be sensible out here."

"We will," Frankie assured him as RJ nodded earnestly.

"See that you do," he frowned, heading for the house.

"What's penetrating oil?" asked Frankie.

"It's stuff that you put on bits of metal that are stuck, like, if they're seized, or scored, or rusted," RJ replied. "It's in the shed." He fetched the yellow bucket, and showed her what was needed. Patiently, she systematically painted the oil over all of the gear parts she could reach with the brush, while RJ poked at the roller assembly.

"This looks okay," he said, "We just gotta get the handle turning."

"Done," Frankie announced, "See if it will move."

RJ put his back into it, but the hand crank didn't budge. His cousin joined in, to no avail.

"Dad says, if at first you don't succeed, get a bigger hammer," RJ stated confidently.

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

Bobby wandered back to the window while he was waiting for the Hunter on the other end of the phone to check something. Frankie was dangling all her weight from a piece of rope looped around the crank handle and bouncing up and down, while RJ whacked at it with a mallet. They showed no sign at all of getting bored, so he left them to it.

"Do it again!" RJ said, wiping at the sweat that had popped out on his face, "Whatever you did, do it again, I think it just moved!" Frankie redoubled her efforts of bouncing up and down on her improvised rope swing. "It's moving!" he exclaimed, whacking at it again, "I think it's moving!"

With a screech and a groan, the ancient gear assembly began to turn.

"It is moving!" he shouted, grabbing the handle and adding his weight. There was a decided clunk, then it turned more freely, depositing Frankie on her backside on the ground, but she jumped up immediately.

"Show me!" she insisted, grabbing hold of the handle.

It was crunchy, it was clunky, it made a terrible noise, and the mechanism slipped on a couple of missing gear teeth, but it was turning. A bit more oil, some careful scraping away of debris, and they soon had it working well enough to be called a wringer. They fed a shop rag through, watching as it emerged, smeared and flattened, from the rollers.

"This is cool!" grinned RJ, "I bet you could squash all sorts of stuff in this!" He cast around and found an empty soda can. He crushed the end, held it against the rollers, and Frankie turned the handle.

It came out almost perfectly flat.

"Try this!" Frankie brandished a large garish flower on a weed stem, which she fed in as RJ turned the crank. The vegetation made a most satisfying squishy noise, and the flower squelched in a very satisfactory fashion.

RJ and Frankie laughed their heads off.

The fed more soda cans, more flowers, an oil can and a cereal box through it, but the pièce de resistance had to be the mosty dessicated remains of a dead lizard that RJ found in the undergrowth.

"Oh, yuck!" yelped Frankie, nonetheless watching avidly as the flattened reptile emerged from the other side.

They amused themselves flattening assorted pieces of hapless metal and some more unsuspecting weeds. RJ was grinning hugely. "This would totally make the best Hunting trap ever!" he declared. "If you could squash something, that would stop just about anything! Except for a ghost, maybe. And it wouldn't stop Castiel. Although you might stop his coat."

"I wonder if Grandpa Bobby could use it," Frankie mused, "You know, like when he has to use herbs and seeds and stuff, and he has to crush up a whole heap of it just to get a little bit of oil or something out? Like Kali's rosemary." She pointed to the large almost-tree of rosemary, which had turned out to have potent occult properties after the ashes of a Hunters' dog were scattered around it when Dean and Sam were just kids themselves. "This might work for that."

They were examining the possibility of crushing herbs for extraction purposes when Bobby called them in for dinner.

"What would a shed pixie look like?" RJ wondered out loud, prodding at a sausage.

"They're not real," Frankie reminded him, stabbing a piece of potato.

"But if they were," RJ persisted, "What would they look like, do you think?"

Frankie considered the matter. "Well, if they're in the sheds here, and Grandpa Bobby has never seen one, then they're really _really_ good at hiding. Or at camouflage. So, they can probably change how they look to people."

"Like, change how big they are?" RJ asked.

"Maybe," she shrugged. "How big they actually are wouldn't matter – it's what people see that would be important. So, they could pretend to be something that you might expect to find in a shed – like a shovel, or a rake, or a piece of metal, or a wrench, or maybe even a mouse – and you'd never even notice them."

"Hmmmmm," mused RJ, "How would you catch one? If they eat bolts and washers and stuff, you could make a big pile of them, and when the shed pixie got hungry, they'd come and check it out, and it would be like, hey, bolt buffet, and then you could catch 'em!"

"Then what?" asked Frankie, "How would you catch it, and then what would you do?"

"I suppose you could use a net or something," he shrugged, "And if you put it through the mangle, that would totally squash it!"

"Don't you let me hear you talk about puttin' anythin' alive through that thing," Bobby growled, "You don't try to gank somethin' until you know what you're dealing with, and you know what will work. And, most importantly, you know that it needs to be ganked."

"I don't think ganking shed pixies would be very nice," opined Frankie, "If all they do is eat a few bolts sometimes. They're probably harmless."

"But what if they ate something really important?" posed RJ.

"Then it serves you right for not puttin' it away where the shed pixies couldn't get to it," said Bobby, sitting down with his own plate. "Eat your peas, RJ."

"Peas are vegetables," the boy complained, "Dad says vegetables aren't food suitable for man. He says that vegetables are what his food eats."

"Your Dad is an idjit who says a whole lot of idjit things, and isn't here," countered Bobby, "And Grandpa Bobby says, vegetables are something that children eat, otherwise he will know that they cannot possibly be hungry enough to get dessert."

With a sigh that was somewhat reminiscent of his uncle, RJ reluctantly made a start on his greens.

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

"RJ,.can you help me with this?" Frankie was bent over the upside down pram chassis. "The wheel doesn't turn."

"Hang on," he put the finishing touches on the intricate pile of nuts, bolts, washers and a few unidentifiable widgets that he'd scrounged from the sheds and arranged carefully on a packing crate. "Okay, show me. Oh, yeah, I think the axle is seized up."

"What is that?" she asked, indicating what appeared to be a shrine erected unto the greater glory of The Machine God.

"That's my shed pixie trap!" RJ grinned. "Or, at least, it's the bait. I got a cargo net stashed behind the bush, over there."

Frankie rolled her eyes, a gesture that she had clearly inherited from her father. "There's no such thing as shed pixies!"

"But if there was, I could catch one."

"What if it was something really small?" Frankie asked. "What if it was something that could get out of the net?"

"Well," RJ replied airily, "If they existed, and if there was one that was, say, using its shed pixie powers of camouflage and disguise to make itself look like a dog, or a cat, or a person, I could catch it."

"My cousin," she sniffed, "The mental giant who sets traps for non-existent creatures."

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence," he grinned at her. She pulled a face, then righted the pram, and gave it an experimental push. Later she went back to skipping with her hula hoop, practising her counting in Latin, whilst RJ decided to investigate the prospects of turning his reclaimed water pistol into something that could be used to hassle his cousin.

With a bit of sealant, a lighter to melt some of the casing and some duct tape he got it sealed again, and was annoying Frankie by squirting her before lunchtime.

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

She waited until they were in the shed again, squabbling over something inconsequential as children do, then she walked right through the front gate, and let them discover her peering intently at the pile of metalware on the box. She timed it so that she was just reaching for the pile, with a hungry look on her face, when...

"Aha!"

She let out a convincing little shriek, and fell to her knees, as the net was thrown over her. "Please don't hurt me!" she quavered, knowing that in her rather plump and decidedly dowdy oversuit of dead meat, she looked about as threatening as a marshmallow. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I was just hungry, and those bolts looked so tempting and delicious..."

RJ gasped. "It's true!" he yipped, "They do exist! You're a shed pixie!" He punched the air. "Yesss! Frankie! Frankie! Come and see! I've caught a shed pixie!"

"Grandpa Bobby told you, they aren't real," the exasperated pout on her face was audible before she emerged from the shed. She stopped, and gasped, staring with wide eyes. "Are you... are you really? A shed pixie?"

"Yes," she replied, trembling, "You've found me out."

Frankie cocked her head. "I thought you'd be smaller," she commented, ever the sceptic. "You look like a lady."

"This is just how big I look to you," she told them, "It's the disguise that I use when I don't want to seem out of place."

The girl nodded in warily. "So, what are you doing out here?" she demanded. "Why aren't you in the shed?"

"Well," she glanced back towards the 'bait', "They just looked so good, so tasty, all piled up like that, and I just couldn't help myself."

Frankie fixed her with a suspicous stare. "If you're a shed pixie," she said, "Eat a screw, or something."

"Oh, I'd love to!" she trilled, picking up a washer and chewing. She felt some of her meatsuit's teeth crack. "Mmmmmmm, oh, these are so good, I really love the little round ones."

"See? She is a shed pixie!" RJ beamed. "This is totally cool!"

"How do we know you're not evil?" Frankie asked.

"I'm not evil," she told them earnestly, "I don't hurt anyone, or bother anyone, I just eat nuts and bolts occasionally."

"I guess that's not really evil," RJ said.

"I'm not, I promise," she told them.

"Well, it's very exciting to meet you then," smiled Frankie, "Grandpa Bobby doesn't believe you're real!"

"Really?" she feigned surprise, then smiled mischieviously. "Well, why don't you introduce me to Grandpa Bobby, and we'll show him how wrong he is! We can surprise him!"

"We sure will!" grinned RJ. "Hey, you wanna see what we've been doing? We found this thing called a mangle, and Frankie found a pram, which she'll probably use to push dolls around or something lame like that..."

"Don't pay any attention to him," sniffed Frankie, taking her hand, "He's so dumb, he thinks a stupid water pistol is funny. Hey, you wanna see me skip with my hula hoop?"

She laughed, and clapped as Frankie demonstrated her skipping. This was delicious, absolutely _delicious_. The anticipation of the expressions their dear little faces would wear when she showed her true colours, and pulled their guts out of their bodies while they were watching, was almost too much to bear...

"...Octo, novem, decem!" chanted Frankie. "Here, you have a turn!" With a big smile, she threw the hoop up and over their visitor, so it landed at her feet.

"Oh, this form of me is a bit big to skip with a hoop, sweetie," she smiled, stepping over it.

Well, she tried to, at least, but quickly found that she couldn't.

"It's full of salt," Frankie explained. "My Dad did it for me, when I found the hoop. Good isn't it?"

"Yeah, yeah, the hoop thing is okay," allowed RJ grudgingly, "But this is more fun!" He brandished his water pistol. "I got it working!"

She screamed as a stream of holy water hit her in the face.

"You little shits!" she shrieked, her eyes going black as she bared her teeth, "You think you can keep me in a hula hoop full of salt?"

"Not for long," acknowledged Frankie, putting her hands to the push bar of her pram, and starting to run.

She was able to get up quite a good turn of speed, so that when she hit the demon at full tilt, it collapsed into the rotting vinyl, wedged like an unfortunate geek deposited ass first into a trash can by a pack of rampaging jocks.

"Aaaaargh!" the demon screamed. "I'll gut you for that, you little... what the...?"

"Devil's trap," Frankie shrugged. "We drew on it underneath. And there's some sigils and stuff. Although I had to redraw the ones that he did, he's no good at that sort of thing..."

"I am so!" RJ protested vehemently.

"This won't hold me!" she hissed, "This flimsy piece of crap is disintegrating under me as we speak! You have nothing that can hold me."

"You know," smirked RJ, "I think that might be where you're wrong."

"Demons," sniffed Frankie, "Dad says they're all basically dumb."

"How did you know?" she shrieked, squirming ineffectually, "How could you possibly know?" She blinked in stupor at the younger child, who gave her a predatory smile that did not belong on the face of a sweet little girl with light brown pigtails and big hazel doe eyes.

"I'm Sam Winchester's kid," the girl smirked. "Did you really think I couldn't pick a demon in a dead host a mile away? Give me a hand here, RJ."

Together they began to push her towards a piece of ancient machinery, the nature of which eluded her at first, until they got close enough for her to read the lettering that had been written across a piece of wood wired to it, in a childish but careful hand.

_**MEGA-MANGLE OF DOOM**_

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

Bobby was a man with long practice – twice over – in the nature of screams coming from where children were playing. They were all different. The 'Don't Pull My Hair Again' scream differed from the 'Ohhhhh That's Gross Why Did You Throw It At Me' scream, which were both distinctly different from the 'Give It Back' scream, the 'I've Got Something Alive In My Pants' scream and the 'I Think I've Hurt Myself But I Haven't Really And Just Need A Hug' scream. Knowing the difference between one scream and another was an essential part of knowing when to let them work it out themselves, and when the presence of the Responsible Adult was required.

So when he heard a distinctly different scream, a truly 'Oh Dear Lord Make It Stop' sort of scream, he went to investigate.

The scene before him was not exactly what he had been anticipating; the kids were standing in front of the shed. That bit he'd been expecting. The bit where a rather portly middle-aged woman sat, wedged in the chassis of the old pram, with one foot jammed into the mangle, not so much.

As he got closer, he figured out what was provoking the screaming.

"...Omnis incursio infernalis adversairii…"

"No, no, it's adverSAH-ree-eye. Do it properly."

"I am! I am! Look, she's screaming!"

"Yeah, but only because you're seriously doing it wrong. Grandpa Bobby sometimes looks like he wants to scream when you try to use the passive tense."

"Okay, Madam Smartass, you think you're so good, you do it!"

"I will. Where were we? Oh, I'll just start again. Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio… what comes next, the secta or the congregatio?"

"It's 'omnis congregatio et secta diabolico', squirt."

"It's secta diabolicA, you dope. Hang on, I'll go back to every assault of The Infernal Enemies. Omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio…"

"Make them stop!" screeched the thing trapped in the pram and the mangle, writhing in agony at the terrible, drawn-out exorcism rite. "_Make them stop!_"

"Look Grandpa Bobby!" chirped Frankie brightly, "We caught a demon!"

"She probably came here to try to kill us," sighed RJ, "But we got her."

"Uh, yeah, I can see that," he scratched his head. "So, now you got it, are you gonna exorcise it, or just torture it for a while?"

"We're exorcising it," RJ explained, "But_ she _keeps forgetting the word order."

"Well, _he_ keeps forgetting the pronunciation," Frankie shot back.

"Balls," muttered Bobby, turning to address the gasping, sobbing creature, "You in there," he snapped, "You comin' after the kids, or their fathers? Huh, stupid question, you wanted us all, didn't ya?" The demon just moaned. "Well, if you promise not to come back again, maybe I'll take pity on ya, and send you back myself, nice and quick… no, who am I kidding, I will never take pity on any of you or your kind, but I might get sick enough of your screamin' to decide to put an end to it."

"Pleeeeeease," the demon begged.

Or not," Bobby went on, "Maybe I'll just motivate you to stay the hell away from me and mine. Okay, let's hear it, then, RJ," he instructed, "All the way through. Take it in turns. Whoever sends this piece of crap back Downstairs gets ice-cream."

"Yaaaaaaay!" they cheered again.

It took several tries, the demon suffering terribly, and amusingly, until, against all expectations, RJ managed to get it right before his cousin, which almost never happened, but nonetheless on this occasion sent the column of black greasy smoke wailing out of the host, and spearing back down into the ground.

"Huh, you can be motivated by food," grunted Bobby. "You really are your father's son."

"Ice cream! Ice cream!" chanted RJ.

"You can both go in and get some," he told them, "You both done real well. Go on, you go in, and let me bury this poor lady, then we'll come out and say a prayer for her later."

"It's really sad," noted Frankie, "Her family are probably worried about her."

"Demons are assholes," muttered RJ.

Bobby couldn't find it in himself to take the boy to task for his language; it made him feel deeply sad that two more Winchester kids had to know about such things at an early age. But they were Hunters' kids, and, well, it was the way of things.

He watched them head towards the house, then crossed himself and muttered a humble request to Castiel and his Father to look kindly on this woman, whoever she was, after what she'd been through, and offer her family some kind of comfort.

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

Once Bobby was in the shed to get his spade, he looked around, making sure he was unobserved, and called quietly.

"Eustace? Eustace! I know you're here, we gotta talk…"

He didn't see where the little being came from – he rarely did – but one moment, he had a sense of one less screwdriver on the pegboard, and the small hirsute creature, who looked like a brown tennis-ball-sized pom-pom with skinny legs and arms and huge expressive eyes, beamed up at him from the bench, its large eyes offering a greeting.

"There you are," Bobby smiled, "Look, the kids are wondering about shed pixies. It's my own stupid fault. I'm sorry for that, and I told 'em that you're not real. One day, maybe we can tell them, but for the moment, well, RJ's at that If It Moves I Can Gank It stage." He paused thoughtfully. "Come to think of it, his dad never really grew out of it…"

Eustace the shed pixie nodded in understanding.

"So, I just want you and yours to be extra careful for a little while, okay? I know you always are, your people aint fools, but, well, no sense in taking changes, right?"

Again, the creature nodded.

"Well, good. Oh, nearly forgot, would you like these? They came in a packet of four, and I only needed the one. I know you like zinc plating."

Bobby handed over some metal spacers to Eustace, who accepted them with a bow of thanks.

"Well, you stay safe. Regards to your mother." He took the spade and headed out, then turned back. "Incidentally, you don't remember seeing a reverse thread one-and-seven-eigths inch nut, do ya?"

Eustace looked thoughtful, then dived into the tiny gab between the bench and the wall, squeezing through it like he was made of putty, then re-emerged a moment later, clutching the nut.

"Well done! Knew I had one somewhere. Thanks, buddy."

Eustace smiled and bowed, and disappeared against the peg board.

Bobby took his shovel, and went out to deal with his sad task, cheered slightly by the knowledge that Castiel would do the right thing by the woman, whoever she'd been, and when he was done he could have ice cream with the kids.

* * *

If somebody would kindly perform the Heimlich manoeuvre until I stop hacking up fluff, I'd be grateful. _GRAAAAAAAK!_


	9. Wherefore Art Thou Winchester?

**Springfield wrote:**

_How do RJ and Sabine get together?_

Here's how it started. Let's chuck in some hurt!Sam because Leahelisabeth likes it so much (sadist). The bunny's name is William, and I call this one...

* * *

**Wherefore Art Thou Winchester?**

Something was tickling his nose. So, all he had to do was find the energy to scratch...

Nope. Arm wasn't responding to the helm. Damn. Well, his head felt too heavy to turn to the side anyway, so he just let himself drift in the dark fog that seemed to fill his brain...

It was quiet. He slept.

Then something was making his arm itch. Hand. Back of his hand. But not too much. Which was good, because when he tried to move to scratch that, nothing happened either.

He didn't really mind - it wasn't that bad, he thought, sliding back into warm darkness.

Quiet. Dark.

Then lights. They hurt his eyes. He winced, tried to turn away, but he couldn't. Oh, yeah, head weighs a ton. Forgot that. Asshole lights. Who invited them, anyway? Never mind, his eyes had no desire at all to stay open anyway, so really, no problemo.

He drifted again.

Then, those damned lights were back. And this time, they brought sounds. And something was still tickling his nose. With a frown, he tried to move his arm again. Either would do.

The frown changed to a wince. One arm hurt. The other one, it was, apparently, kind of stuck.

"Hey, hey," a familiar voice, muffled by the fog in his head, made its way through to his awareness. "Just stop that, Mr Handsy."

He tried to turn towards the voice, tried to reach to it with the arm that didn't hurt, but he couldn't move it. He didn't like that, so he tried again, a bit harder.

"Hey, what did I just say?" the voice was clearer, a combination of scolding, worried and reassuring all at once, "You're not too big for me to make you, Francis."

He cracked his eyes open, despite those damned lights, and managed a small smile, and a single sound. "D'n."

"Yeah, yeah, it's me," the blurry but unmistakeable figure told him, "You're lucky I'm hanging around here at all on account of your sorry ass, a ridiculous number of the nurses here are male, and the female ones are sadly lacking in hotness. Seriously, the next time you get yourself shredded by a shapeshifter, do it somewhere where the closest hospital has a Minimum Staff Hotness Factor of at least 6.5, or I'll dump you on the steps and go find a bar..."

He smiled again – the litany of complaint was in English, but conveyed a message in their private language. _You scared the shit out of me, baby bro. I will find whatever did this, and end it._

There was the reassuring feeling of a hand on his arm, the arm that wouldn't do what it was told, but that was all right, because now Dean was here, everything would be all right, and that arm would start behaving itself or face the wrath of his big brother.

"So, you stay here and heal up," Dean instructed, "While me and RJ go gank this thing, then we'll swing by and break you out as soon as they'll let you out, okay?"

" 'K," he whispered, then he let his eyes slide closed again, because he was really tired...

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

Dean straightened up, watching as Sam slid back into sleep, still too pale, but with his face peaceful. First had been the adrenaline bolus, taking over and getting Sam back to the car, then holding three plaid shirts over the wounds and ordering Sam to stop bleeding all over the upholstery while RJ drove for the nearest Emergency department at close to twice the limit, and bodily dragging his baby bro's giant Sasquatch-sized ass in, yelling for help. Then had been the worry, as he was whisked away to triage, too pale and too still, then into surgery. Finally had come the relief, when he'd been allowed in to see his brother briefly. When Sam had stirred, pulling weakly on the soft cuff preventing him from pawing at his cannula or his IV, he'd let out the mental breath he'd been holding for hours, and allowed his knees to shake (but not the hand he put on Sam's arm when ordering him to knock it off).

"Jesus, Sammy," he whispered, amazed and yet not surprised that, even on this side of fifty, in a hospital bed his brother still looked small, and all of about five years old.

The clack of heels behind him alerted him to the approach of the doctor, who looked like a teenager playing dress-ups in Mommy's white coat. _What the hell is this_, he wondered, _Bring your kid to work day?_

"Mr Hammett?" she queried briefly, consulting her clipboard.

"Yeah," he replied, "I'm Dean. I'm Sam's brother." How's he doin'? He kind of woke up before, just for a couple of minutes."

"That shoulder's been damaged before," she noted.

"Yeah," he confirmed, "Had a fairly major reconstruction job done, seven, eight years ago now."

"Well, fortunately, I can tell you that we were able to effect stable repair of the humerus and the clavicle, also the coracoid process of the scapula," she smiled, "Miraculously, the superior transverse ligament remained completely undamaged, and there was only some minor abrasion of the glenoid fossa..."

"You wanna translate that into English?" It came out more angrily than he intended. "He could translate that for me," he jerked a thumb at his sleeping brother, "But he's kind of out of it right now."

She held up a hand in apology. "What that means is, the bones that were broken went back together remarkably well, and a couple of bits that can cause all sorts of problems were, somehow, untouched. No serious structural complications."

_Oh, yeah, playing with Mommy's coat. And been chewing on her medical dictionary. _ "No serious complications?" he echoed incredulously, "You call_ that_ 'No serious complications'?"

"Yes, I do," she met his stare levelly. "Bones are surprisingly easy, Mr Hammett; mostly, you put the pieces back where they should be, and given time, they do the rest. Soft tissues, and connective tissues in particular, once those are damaged, they don't heal nearly as well, and as far as they they do, it's a lot slower. For what humans use their shoulders for, it's badly constructed. A piece of evidence for the theory of Incompetent Design, if you ask me."

"I'm prepared to consider that," griped Dean.

"However, as I was saying," she went on, "Given the minimal tendon or ligament damage, and your brother's fitness, his prognosis is excellent."

"Well, good," grunted Dean, "When can I take him home?"

"He's on some heavy duty meds at the moment," she explained, "He probably won't be back on Planet Coherent for another day or so. Once we confirm that the fractures are stable and healing, and he can manage on tablets, you can bust him out," she smiled. "If he's anything like you, I suspect he'll want out as soon as possible."

"We both kind of hate hospitals," Dean admitted.

"Sensible," she agreed, "They're full of sick people. I advise everybody to avoid them whenever possible."

"Thanks, Doc," Dean sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face, "He's my kid brother, you know, I'm supposed to look after him..."

"Well, if you find the idiot on the trailbike who ran into him, let me know," the doctor said, "I'd just love five minutes alone with the rider. If there's anything left by the time you're done."

He nodded, then turned back to say a silent goodbye to Sam, then called RJ before leaving.

On the way back out to the lot, he bought himself a cup of the dirty lukewarm water that hospitals laughingly called coffee. It's ridiculous, he thought, tasting the vile brew, humankind has eliminated polio from the planet, developed a vaccine for malaria, is building a permanent base on the moon, established routine supersonic air travel, and nobody can invent a machine that spits out something resembling drinkable coffee. It was like their complete and utter failure to design a shopping cart that went where you tried to steer it. Where the hell were society's priorities?

He was only lurking disreputably by the kerb for a couple of minutes when his Baby came rumbling up to collect him.

RJ handed him a large cup as he slid into shotgun. "Got you coffee," he said.

"Thanks," Dean replied, dropping the cup of dissolved-bird-shit-masquerading-as-beverage out the window.

RJ didn't bother to ask 'How's Uncle Sammy?" or "Are you okay, Dad?", for which Dean was grateful; at nearly eighteen, the kid – Jesus, he was taller than Dean now, a fact that gave Sam no end of amusement, although he was still awkwardly gangly the way his uncle had been before he started to fill out – was smart enough to know that the answers could be discerned from his father's general demeanour. In this case, they were, 'He'll heal up well enough for me to kick his ass for scaring the shit out of me again', and 'Homicidal'.

"So, now it's broken cover, we know what we're up against," Dean went on without preamble.

"And I know where it is," RJ added, sounding just a touch smug. "It'll try to go to ground, after losing an arm..."

"That won't have killed it," Dean pointed out.

"No, but it's hurt, and will need to hole up to shift, and heal, after an injury like that" RJ told him, "I had a look at some of the stuff Uncle Sammy was pulling together. There's a cabin that's a common factor in many of the attacks. It's getting arrogant, which is making it dumb, which is making it predictable. I think that's where it'll go."

"So, are you suggesting we can set a trap for this thing?" Dean asked.

RJ turned a brilliant smile to his Dad. "Oh, no," he beamed, "Just flush it out, run it down, and gank it."

Dean smiled back as he began to load his gun with silver rounds. "That's my boy."

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

They found their shapeshifter as easily as that: the mauling it had received at the hands of the Winchesters had damaged it to the point where it had to hole up and let itself recover before it could shift again. When they cornered it in the small hunting cabin in the Nebraska woods, it was back on its feet, but panicked – the thing made a run for it.

Dean and RJ went after it, herding it, steering it, moving ridiculously silently and efficiently after it as it crashed through the thick undergrowth, like a couple of wolves who've been hunting together for so long that they know what the other is thinking, and what the other will do.

They were closing in on it when RJ suddenly stopped, and listened hard. He heard nothing.

But the nothing he heard was a Hunter's 'nothing', which is to say, it was the nothing where the usual small noises of the forest that never ceased, suddenly did. It was the nothing of critters holding their breath and waiting for something nasty to pass them by. The nothing of something moving, deliberately and silently, to converge on his position.

The thing was, it was coming from a completely different direction to where they were driving the shapeshifter. Even if it had doubled back, it couldn't be where the nothing was.

That was why he paused and crouched sliding out of sight behind a rotting trunk. He listened, reassessing, gathering intel from around him, waiting for his father to realise that he wasn't moving and cut back to find out why. Shapeshifters didn't usually come as pairs, but Hunters quickly learned that there were very few absolutes in the job. So he waited, in exactly the way he'd been trained to since he was old enough to understand how important it was to follow orders.

Later he wondered if his life would've turned out differently if he'd kept moving. He decided probably not, but it might've avoided throwing fuel on the fire of an argument that turned out to be positively Shakespearean.

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

When shit happened on a Hunt, it could happen so suddenly that there wasn't time to wink, blink or shit yourself, let alone think or figure out what was happening. Even the best Hunter could sometimes be completely blindsided, which is what had happened to Sam. So when Dean figured out that RJ wasn't moving, and that the shifter was turning back, he readied himself to shoot first, and not bother to ask questions afterwards.

And as it turned out, shit happened. Really, really fast. It couldn't have taken more than a total of three seconds, tops.

From RJ's point of view, he was listening for his father, and the thing that was trying to flank him, and he didn't see the shapeshifter until it was right on top of him, before he could even raise his gun.

From Dean's point of view, he broke into a small clearing, saw the shapeshifter, then saw his son bowled over by something bigger, and moving faster. In that instance his brain supplied all the info he needed – werewolf – and he raised his gun, and fired.

In that exact instance, something even bigger shot into the clearing from the other side, snarling in anger, and took the round.

The shapeshifter and Dean were both briefly stunned into immobility, and stared into each other's bugging eyes, sharing a universal 'WTF just happened?' moment before the monster, now bellowing with rage – another werewolf – turned and took its head off with a single swipe of lethal claws, while a second swipe gutted it. RJ, to his credit, stood, and put a double-tap into the centre of what was left of its mass.

He was loaded with silver, so Dean raised his gun again, and aimed for the monstrous humanoid wolf that bore down on him, still bellowing its bloodlust. Too late; it moved with a speed borne of some deeply primal motivation.

What that motivation was became clear immediately.

One moment, Dean was bracing himself to be savaged by a very very angry werewolf.

The next, he found himself flat on his back, with a nude woman sitting on his chest, blood oozing from the bullet would in her arm, as she seized his jacket lapels and, wolf fangs jutting, screeched her fury at him.

"_**Dean fucking Winchester what the fuck do you fucking think you're fucking doing shooting at my fucking daughter you fucking fucker!?"**_

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

RJ brushed himself off, and turned to the younger wolf, who nevertheless towered over him.

"Oh, hey, Sabine!' he greeted her.

She whuffed back, and sort of shrugged all over, reassuming her human form. "Hey, RJ," she smiled, "Your timing sucks, you know that?"

"My timing?" he snorted. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"What do you think, you dope?" she grinned. "Hunting. Dad's got family in Nebraska, so we've been visiting. This is a kind of mother-daugher bonding thing. Waaaay better than Avon parties, or makeovers. Dad and Connor are fishing."

"Yeah?" RJ grinned back. "On how many legs?"

"Two, last we saw of them," she shrugged, turning to the dead shapeshifter. "Nice shootin', Tex."

"Yeah, well, nice save on home," he replied, turning to the argument. "Shit," he swore, "I think Dad shot your mom."

"Oh, dear," sighed Sabine, "That'll make her really cranky. Silver stings like fuck. Not like she needs a reason to get annoyed at your Dad," she added, giving him a cheery smile.

When he saw the smile, RJ felt a weird little flutter in his stomach, and became suddenly, acutely aware that he was standing next to a naked girl. Well, technically, a naked young woman.

Which ordinarily wasn't a problem, because werewolves who controlled their shapeshift tended to be very good at the 'love the skin you're in' thing, and from childhood he'd seen all of the Jaegers shuck out of their clothes as unselfconsciously as he'd remove a jacket, and understood that for them, it was as natural and inconsequential as breathing. And the whole undressed thing, not a really big deal for someone who grew up with three guys batching it together and had spent time on the road living with his dad and his uncle in cramped, crappy accommodation.

The thing was, Sabine had kind of grown since in the last couple of years. And she'd kind of grown in a really interesting way.

She'd taken more after her father, for which her mother was eternally grateful – her family said that she actually looked very like a young Great Aunt Dotsie, who had held the title of Miss Sauerkraut North Dakota in1935. But he'd never realised that she had inherited Ronnie's smile, that amazing expression that her father had once told him was the thing that took his breath away the first time he saw her.

RJ had always liked Sabine's wolf form, for as long as he could remember; she was lithe and graceful, with silver-grey fur. But now, he saw _that _smile, and it suddenly occurred to him that he liked his friend's human form quite a lot, too...

"Er," he said, turning to cover his sudden confusion, "Here." He shrugged out of his plaid, and handed it to her. "It's cold."

"Thanks," she pulled it on, and looked to where their parents were squaring off. "We better go stop them," she said, "Before they do something stupid."

As they watched, Dean hauled off and took a swing at an Old North Werewolf.

"Whoops, too late," sighed RJ, following her.

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

The game of 'Who Would Win?' was one of RJ's favourites from when he was very young. He liked to play it with his Dad, when they were on the road, and Grandpa Bobby would indulge him endlessly with it, his answers always entertaining, and practically guaranteed to send the conversation off at a tangent with a speed that would leave a stunt driver dizzy.

"Who would win, Grandpa Bobby, a vampire or a werewolf?"

"That depends on how many fatuous wimmen are screamin' at them to take off their shirts."

"What about a zombie and a rugaru?"

"Well, technically, the zombie is already dead, so the rugaru might not want to eat it."

"How about a wendigo and a shapeshifter?"

"Hmmmm, well, if the wendigo grabbed the shapeshifter, it might find itself fighting another wendigo."

"What about a possessed wendigo? Could a possessed wendigo beat an unpossessed wendigo?"

"This unpossessed wendigo, is it a real wendigo, or a shapeshifter pretendin' to be a wendigo?"

"Ummmm, a real one."

"Well, I don't think a demon would possess a wendigo, to start with."

"Why not?"

"Well, it might be a bit like movin' into a really dirty, smelly, nasty apartment, so I don't think they would."

"Can we summon Crowley and ask him?"

"No! We are not summoning that assha... that idjit just to ask him about wendigo possession."

"Who would win out of Dad, and Auntie Ronnie?"

"Best go ask your father, or Ronnie."

"I did."

"And?"

"He said he'd win."

"I guess he would say that."

"He said he'd totally kick her smug hairy ass."

"Yup, that sounds like him."

"I asked her too."

"Did you, now?"

"She said she'd win."

"Uh-huh."

"She said she'd wipe the smile of his girly-man face and punch him in the cobblers until he sang soprano."

"She said that, huh?"

"Uh-huh. What's cobblers?"

"What?"

"What's cobblers? She said she'd punch him in the cobblers. Is it like peach cobbler? She makes that really good. Dad likes her peach cobbler, but he prefers her pies."

"No, it's, uh, look, it's rhyming slang."

"What's rhyming slang?"

"It's a form of slang that came out of England, and a lot of it got transplanted to Australia, you know, where Auntie Ronnie is from."

"What does it mean, then?"

"I... have no idea."

"Can we summon Crowley and ask him?"

"NO!"

"What's soprano?"

"It's... a type of pasta."

"Can I have some ice-cream?"

"If the answer is yes, will you go and ask your uncle about stuff?"

"Okay."

"So, how many scoops?"

The real answer to the question "Who would win, a Hunter or an Old North Werewolf?" was clearly a lot more complex than that.

On the face of it, in a knock-down, drag-out fight, the answer was eminently and depressingly clear: the werewolf, and very quickly.

Throw in some extra factors, like the Hunter being one of the best the US had ever seen, and being armed with silver, and the werewolf being past her prime but still very dangerous, but winged with said silver, and it got a lot more interesting.

Throw in the fact that they had spent a lot of time and energy cultivating a cordial dislike of each other over nearly three decades, and that they were both almost incoherent with rage because they each believed that the other had tried to kill their offspring, and all bets were off.

Some last vestige of self-control kept Ronnie in her human form, although her claws kept trying to pop out, and she didn't even bother trying to stop her teeth. She reeled back from the blow to her jaw, and howled her outrage.

"My pup!" she could barely speak through her fury, and her fangs, "You shot at my pup!" The haymaker she unleashed with her good arm lifted him off his feet.

A lesser man would've gone to his knees, but Dean staggered upright, and rushed back in. "She nearly killed him!" he bellowed back, "Your fucking daughter tried to kill my son!" The cross had felled men bigger than Sam.

She rocked back, and roared again. "Your son could've killed my daughter!" she raged, dealing out a backhanded swipe that sent him sprawling, "You arrogant frigging Yankee bastard!"

"Sonofabitch!" he yelled, surging upward and hitting her below the sternum. It was the nearest thing a werewolf had to a weak spot – the trouble was most Hunters who got close enough to exploit that were dead first. "I'll fill you with silver til you're a tea strainer fit for the Queen of fucking England, you bitch!"

She collapsed to her knees, wheezing. "I'll gut you, mongrel!" she hissed, going for the headbutt.

Dean collapsed beside her, shrieking in anger and pain.

RJ shrieked in sympathy.

"Oh," winced Sabine, "Right in the cobblers, that's gotta sting..."

Still shouting obscenities at each other, although somewhat more breathlessly, the antagonists staggered to their feet. Dean drew his gun. Ronnie pulled her arm back, letting her claws extrude for the killing strike.

"Come on," RJ grabbed Sabine's arm, "We gotta stop 'em before this gets really nasty."

It took a couple of tries: the first time they tried to interpose themselves between their parents, they were both casually tossed aside as though they were just doing another sparring drill.

"Get out of the way, RJ!" snarled Dean, "You do what I damned well tell you, young man!"

Ronnie let out a snarl and cuffed Sabine just hard enough to make the point. _Behind! I am Alpha!_

They scrambled up, and tried again, reassured by the feeling of having each other's backs.

"Dad," RJ scrambled up and tried again, "Can we just, uh, pause for a minute?"

"Yeah," Sabine stood her ground, looking as formally submissive as a human could, "Can we just, you know, take a breather?"

"RJ," Dean rumbled dangerously, as Ronnie echoed him with a deep threatening growl, "Get out of the way."

"No," RJ said, as Sabine barked similar defiance.

"Don't make me go through you, kiddo," Dean continued.

The inspiration struck both youngsters at once; on a common understanding, they swapped places.

"Okay, Uncle Dean," shrugged Sabine, "You go through me instead." Behind her, RJ gave Ronnie a bright smile.

It was the required circuit breaker.

Dean put up his weapon, and let out a cry of frustration. "What the fuck is this?" he demanded.

"Are you two little shits double-teaming us?" yapped Ronnie, her claws and her teeth vanishing.

"Totally," Sabine grinned smugly. "Has it worked?"

Dean let out a deep huff, as Ronnie rumbled a thwarted growl. "For now," he said grudgingly.

"Good," humphed RJ. "Because we got a dead shapeshifter to bury, and silver in Auntie Ronnie, and if there's anybody within ten miles of this spot, they'll be calling in the rangers and emergency services to see why World War Three is breaking out."

Both alleged adults glowered at him.

"So, uh, why don't you go, you know, dig that round out," Sabine waved a hand at them, "And we'll take care of this, and catch you up."

"And if there's any more brawling, we'll come back and beat the crap out of you olds," warned RJ, "Just to get some peace."

"I'd like to see you try," muttered Dean, "I can still kick your ass to the kerb, kiddo."

"I am Alpha," echoed Ronnie. "You have not yet left my den, Young."

"Yeah, yeah, we submit," Sabine rolled her eyes, "Go snipe at each other somewhere else."

"Your kid," Ronnie glared accusingly at Dean as they turned and headed out of the clearing, "Has a nasty habit of being sensible when provoked. Where the fuck did he get that from?"

"Well your kid is too damned quick to try to save people from themselves," Dean shot back. "She's gotta get that from her dad."

"What sort of a crap shot was that, anyway?"

"I hit you, didn't I?"

"You winged me. What's the matter, double-tap too high for you to count?"

"Why waste more rounds than necessary on an old bitch like you?"

"Ha! I could still have gutted you."

"Like hell you would."

"Yeah, like hell I'd want to eat your liver, it's probably so cirrhotic by now I'd break a tooth on it."

"Fucking cow."

"Bloody dick."

Their litany of complaint faded as they headed back through the forest.

RJ pulled out the folding entrenchment tool he'd had strapped across his back. "This could take a while," he sighed.

"Fuck that," Sabine grinned, handing back his plaid shirt, "Dad didn't call me 'Shovelpaws' for nothing. When I was a toddler, he dug the sandpit down to six feet deep. Stand back."

She did the shrug thing again, and reassumed her wolf form. With a wink, she dropped to all fours beside the shapeshifter, and began to dig.

RJ watched, admiring the economical action with which the young she-werewolf quickly excavated a deep enough hole to bury the carcass.

He found he couldn't help admiring the view once she'd taken on her human form again afterwards, and was grateful that she put his plaid back on.

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

When they got back to the Impala, Ronnie's arm was bandaged and she was wearing some sweats that were too big for her. Dean was remonstrating with her.

"Give it back!"

"Nope, it's mine now."

"Finder's keepers."

"No way! You shot it into me! Location location location, mate."

"If you don't hand it over right now, so help me I'll..."

"You'll what, pout at me? Ohhhh, that's epically scary!"

"What is it now?" RJ almost wailed.

"She won't give me the round back!" Dean snapped, "I took it out, and now she won't give it back! Those things cost money!"

"Be glad that an 'old bitch' like me doesn't need many rounds," Ronnie grinned smugly, brandishing the piece of silver carefully with a piece of bandage offcut.

"Oh, God," sighed Sabine, "Aren't parents supposed to get older before they become so demented they start regressing to act like children again?"

"Let's just... get you back to your truck," suggested RJ, ushering Sabine into the back seat and holding the door for Ronnie.

"I hope you burn you hand," grumbled Dean.

"I hope your Viagra dealer duds you," Ronnie smiled sweetly.

Ronnie's truck wasn't a long drive away, for which RJ and Sabine were grateful.

"I can get out!" snapped Ronnie, as Dean grudgingly opened the door and offered a hand.

"Well, pardon me for trying to help," he griped.

"You just want to steal my silver slug," she sniffed disdainfully, "You bloody pickpocket."

"If you had the last silver slugs in the world stashed in your pants, I'd learn to kill werewolves with an umbrella," Dean sneered.

"Thanks, RJ," Sabine clapped him on the arm, "For everything."

"Oh, uh, yeah," he replied feeling suddenly tongue-tied in front of her.

"I'm really sorry about Mum," she went on, "She can just get so, you know, protective. I don't think it's a wolf thing; I think it's just a parent thing."

"Oh, yeah, totally," RJ nodded. "Dad's the same. I think he thinks I'm still a kid."

Sabine turned as her mother called her.

"Er," RJ went on, "Would it be... is it okay if I call you later?"

Sabine broke into that smile again. "Sure," she said, "That'd be good. See ya!"

"Yeah," he echoed. "See ya."

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

"And then," Dean spluttered in outrage, "And then, she wouldn't even give me back the silver!"

"Serves you right," Sam shrugged with one shoulder, then went back to eating the chicken salad they'd brought in for him in lieu of hospital food. "Crap," he muttered, "How they expect anybody to eat with all this frigging IV shit hanging outta them is beyond me."

"Want me to feed you, Sammy?" Dean used his most infuriating grin, "You used to love the choo-choo. Here comes the choo-choo!"

"Fuck off, jerk," Sam snorted, carefully wiggling the fork into the salad. "Sounds like it's a good thing that Sabine was there to help calm things down."

"She wouldn't have had to calm anything down if she hadn't nearly killed RJ!" Dean snapped vehemently.

Sam didn't miss the faint flush on RJ's face. "But she didn't," he said firmly, "Job's done, fugly's buried, we're all still alive to bitch about it. Close enough to a win for me." The eruption of Mount Dean subsided. "So, what now? Can you bust me out?"

"Not for a few days yet," Dean replied apologetically. "It's your bad shoulder, Sam – I think we should pay attention to the children in white coats this time."

"Deeeeean," Sam whined.

"Dean me no Deans, Sam," his big brother frowned, "We'll head for Bobby's as soon as you get a green light, but you're confined to quarters until further notice."

Sam sighed. "At least you could get me some coffee that actually tastes a bit like coffee," he grumbled. "No, not you," he went on as RJ got up to leave, "I need you to fill me in on those other incidents around the cabin."

"I made a couple of tweaks to the program," RJ said, "And it narrowed the location down to 500 feet in a few less iterations..."

"Great," humphed Dean, "My kid had caught geek. I'll never forgive you, Francis." He flounced out, presumably in search of coffee.

When the sound of his footsteps had faded, Sam turned to his nephew and said, "Now, tell me what happened."

RJ did, giving a less colourful but more accurate rendition of the shapeshifter Hunt.

Sam grinned. "Bobby says we should lock 'em in the panic room with Nerf bats, and let 'em beat the crap out of each other," he chuckled. "Maybe we could catch up with the Jaegers if they're in town."

"Dad might not want to do that," RJ pointed out, "And Sabine says that her mom was still ranting about it this morning."

"Really?" queried Sam. "When did you talk to her last?"

"Oh, uh," that faint but unmistakeable flush rose on RJ's face again, making his freckles visible, "This morning. I called her. While Dad was in the shower." His face became glum. "When he asked who I'd been talking to and I told him, he said I wasn't allowed to call her again."

"Oh," nodded Sam. "What exactly did he say?"

"What he said was, 'I forbid you to have anything to do with that smug little cow of a Jaeger girl!'," recalled RJ. "Which is interesting, because apparently after we talked, Auntie Ronnie told Sabine that she was to have nothing to do with that careless idiot of a Winchester boy."

"Uh-huh," Sam nodded, "Is Ronnie okay?"

"Oh, yeah, she just got winged," RJ waved a hand airily, "Sabine says that the more she complains, the less is actually wrong."

"Sounds like somebody I know," Sam grunted. "So, what are you guys gonna to do while I'm cooling my heels here?"

"Dad wants to hit a couple of bars for pool," RJ told him, "I'm good enough now, and I pass as old enough." There was a deep silence.

"You know," Sam said carefully, "Your Dad still enjoys female company."

"That's putting it mildly," RJ rolled his eyes.

"Don't roll your eyes like that," grinned Sam, "Because I know that you 'enjoy' female company too."

RJ didn't say anything; he may have inherited his father's precocious talent with the ladies – he'd had his pick of dates for any school function since he was fifteen – but he hadn't gotten the smug and brazen cockiness to go with it.

"Which is perfectly fine, provided both parties are informed and consenting," Sam went on, taking pity on his nephew. "So, if your dad happens to meet somebody at the bar, and tells you not to wait up, who's to say that you have to go straight back to the room?"

RJ thought about that, and smiled, then his face clouded a bit.

"Uncle Sammy," he began hesitantly, "How do you know if... if a girl... you know...how do you know if a girl likes you?"

Sam raised his eyebrows. "Likes you, as in likes you 'cause your friends, or likes you as in, _likes_ you?"

"Um," RJ studied the floor, "Can it be, like, kind of, both?"

Sam had a sudden insight as to where this was going, and sighed inwardly. _Oh shit._ "Well," he said thoughtfully, "I'm really not the sort of person to ask about this sort of thing, but I don't think you're asking about the sort of answer that you'd get from your dad, are you?"

RJ shook his head.

"Well," Sam went on, "When I was with Jess – you know who Jess was? – when I was with her, part of what made me decide I _liked _liked her was that we were good friends first, and we had a lot of similar interests, and, well, I just talked to her."

"You make it sound easy," humphed RJ.

"I never said it was easy," Sam laughed, "It's one of the hardest things I ever had to do. Still, you got plenty of time for that sort of thing yet, you're only just turning eighteen. So, tell me about how it ran with the stuff from the last shapeshifter we took out."

They were discussing the fugly tracking program Sam had been working on with his nephew when Dean returned, and complained again of his brother corrupting his child.

"Stop it!" he insisted. "He'll catch nerd!"

When they left, Dean outlining his plan for hustling pool and RJ looking thoughtful, Sam waved them goodbye, then, as soon as they were gone, fumbled with his cell and made a call.

"Andrew? Yeah, it's me! Uh-huh. I guess you've heard about that already. At some length. Yeah. Look, are you alone? We need to talk."

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

RJ made sure his head was in the game as he and his father cleaned up at pool, then made an exit before friendly turned ugly. Dean was in a good mood as he handed over RJ's cut.

"How come I don't get half?" he demanded.

"Because you didn't put up the stake, you don't put gas in the car, and you don't pay for the rooms," Dean told him serenely, "And I'm your father, so I make the rules."

Yes, sir," grumbled RJ.

"That's my boy," smiled Dean. "So, I got plans for tonight..."

"The blonde or the redhead?" asked RJ guilelessly.

"Never you mind," Dean frowned briefly. "So, don't wait up."

"Uncle Sammy wants me to run some more data through our tracker," RJ volunteered.

Dean shuddered. "Jeez, why can't you just wait until I'm gone and then watch porn, like a normal teenager left alone would do? I blame your uncle."

"Daaaaaad!" complained RJ with all the mortification of a teenager with a parent overtly discussing That Sort Of Thing.

Dean left, and RJ had just started up the laptop when his cell buzzed.

**Hey RJ, you like skee ball, don't you? Wanna get your ass kicked?**

He smiled hugely, and sent a message back.

**Bring it, Lassie.**

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

Sam was flicking through the channels of the small hospital TV when his cell buzzed.

"Hey, RJ," he answered it, "How's it going?"

"I, uh, might not get to that data tonight," his nephew told him.

"Oh?" he asked, trying to keep the smile out of his voice, "Found something more interesting to do?"

"Uh, skee-ball," RJ admitted, "Sabine really likes it, and…"

"Hiya Uncle Sam!" he heard her voice yelling.

"Knock it off! So, uh, Uncle Andrew demanded some pair-bonding time after the horrors of visiting family, and took Auntie Ronnie out for dinner, and maybe a run under the moonlight later, and Connor is hanging with a couple of his cousins, so, uh, we're playing skee-ball."

"I'm kicking his fluffy butt!" Sabine yelled again.

"She isn't!" RJ insisted. "Well, okay, yeah, she kind of is, but that's only a couple of games gone so far…"

"Well, you guys be sensible," he tried to sound stern, "You know the drill. Stay aware of your surroundings, don't settle somewhere with your backs to a door, keep your holy water and salt to hand…"

"What's he saying?" demanded Sabine's voice.

"He's treating us like we're idiot five-year-olds," Sam could practically hear the eye roll, "We know the drill, Uncle Sammy."

"Just make sure you're both home before your parents, okay?" he suggested.

"We will," RJ assured him, "Thanks, Uncle Sammy."

"Have fun," he cut the call, laughed to himself, then winced because it made his ribs hurt, and turned back to the small television. As he switched channels, he caught a snatch of Shakespearean dialogue:

…_Two households, both alike in dignity  
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene  
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny  
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean…_

It was an old BBC production that he'd seen at school, and he found himself drawn into the language that had at once confused and enthralled him.

_O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?_

He couldn't help but laugh to himself. The Montagues and the Capulets thought they had problems?

O, RJ, RJ, wherefore art thou Winchester?

He could pass the time re-writing it, and maybe pass it off as an avant-garde reinterpretation:

Two families, both as lethal as each other  
In North America, where this shit goes down  
His father is a jerk, an older brother,  
Her mom, a grumpy werewolf with a frown…

He had a feeling that this story would have a much happier ending.

* * *

For those who are not up with their rhyming slang, 'cobblers' is short for 'cobblers' awls', which is 'balls'. Like Sabine said, getting hit in them has to sting...

Meanwhile, reviews empower the bunnies!


	10. Merry Christmas Sam Winchester

**Before anybody asks:**

I do not give a flying fornicate about the birth of Baby Windsor. Srsly. Women have babies every damned day. It's no more special than any other. If the UK wants to keep a herd of very expensive pets called The Royal Family, that's up to them, but I'm one of those Antipodean ratbag republicans. I have nothing against Betty Windsor (I find her husband's buffoonery entertaining, in fact); I just don't understand the relevance of a family that enjoys astounding privilege simply because their ancestors were most brutal in getting together with a bunch of mates and beating the shit out of any opposition with sharpened crowbars until they managed to cow enough of the population into doing their bidding and making them rich. Everybody seems to have forgotten that they're Germans.

All right, rant over. Ahem.

**Jedipati (amongst others) wants to know:**

_What is the Sam from the "It Don't End in Blood" AU like?_

That AU appealed to some of The Denizens, it would seem. It would take another several stories to answer all the questions, but I can say that:

- AU!Sam does not have the Dick Of Death problem

- Yes, he went to Stanford, as part of a long-term strategy to convince the foster families, therapists and FBI agents watching him that he was a normal, well-adjusted individual, ready to become a productive member of society

- He was overjoyed to be reunited with his big brother, then his family, again (there was LOTS of hugging)

- He doesn't have any demon-blood-powered powers, since Azazel never got to feed him demon blood. However, he still has turbo-charged Puppy Dog Eyes, and he knows how to use them

- He is very similar to the Sam Winchester in the usual Jimiverse: he's smart, a bit shy, has dimples, loves to read, can set fire to anything and leave no clues behind, eats a lot of salad, bickers affectionately with his brother, is a hugger, and knows a lot of ways to kill people and dispose of the bodies in an unincriminating fashion

- AU!Dean is the one who knits, but Sam is the one who suggests he starts an Etsy store. He then learned to knit himself, so it was something that he and his brother could do together

- AU!Winchesters did once find their Jimiverse selves on HellTV. Dean was horrified at his womanising ways, Ruby couldn't stop laughing at the idea of Castiel being an angel, and Sam thought it would be really cool to be able to move stuff around with his mind.

Anyway, the fluffy stuff seems to be what The Denizens like, so I thought I'd put together a little story about the Winchester-Singer extended clan that Doesn't End With Blood spending an important family occasion together. I call this one…

* * *

**Merry Christmas, Sam Winchester**

"So, let me try again," laughed Kelly, "Alistair was Dean's tutor, and Crowley is the family doctor, and they're kind of like Waldorf and Statler..."

"Right," Sam encouraged, peering through the splatters of rain that started to pepper the windscreen. "Although to hear them, sometimes Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding might be more accurate."

"And Meg is the housekeeper, and Bobby is sure she's a demon, only she's not really, he just believes that because she sacrifices his old flannels to the Great Devil-God Housekeeping."

"So far, so good," Sam nodded.

"Castiel is the lawyer, and he's the one having the beautiful bromance with Dean...

Does Ruby mind?" Kelly asked. "The bromance, I mean."

"Not really," Sam shrugged, "I think that since RJ came along, she's glad to have Dean out of her hair sometimes."

"Okay, so, Andy is from Down Under, and Jo is his partner..."

"No," Sam broke in, "Veronica is his partner. Their kid is Connor."

"Oh, yeah," Kelly nodded in recollection, "Ellen is the accountant, and Jo..."

"...Is her nymphomaniac daughter," confirmed Sam. "She still keeps trying to accost Dean in dark places."

"What does Ruby think about that?" asked Kelly.

"She laughs her head off," Sam confided, "Tells him he screams like a little bitch. Which he does." He looked at her sideways. "She'll probably offer to give him to you for a couple of hours for Christmas," he warned her. "There will be mention of strategically placed bows."

"Hmmmmm," mused Kelly, "He does look kind of cute in the photos... joke!" she yelped, as he turned on the Puppy-Dog Eyes. "Geez, insecure much?"

"I'm not insecure!" Sam yapped in protest, "It's just... you know, I'm taking you to meet my extended family for the first time. I want them to like you, I want you to like them..."

"I think I already like them just fine," she patted his knee reassuringly. "And I'm keen to meet some of Bobby's dogs. Their genetics sound really interesting."

"It's the Standard Poodle in them that he says makes 'em really dangerous," Sam told her, "Because he says it makes 'em smart."

"Poodles are a very intelligent breed," she nodded. There was a thump from the back of the car. She pulled out a road map, and consulted it. "Take the next left," she instructed.

Sam did as he was bid, stopping on a bridge. In the shadows below, a frozen-over river broke through its icy crust where the rushing waters swirled over rocks and around the pylons, creating a jagged, churning gap in the ice.

Kelly leaned over the bridge and inspected the scene below. "This will do nicely," she pronounced satisfied, "Time to take out the garbage."

Sam popped the trunk, causing the bound and gagged man within to blink, not so much in the dull light, but more in bewilderment and fear.

"If you've bled on my car, I'll end you," growled Sam as the man flinched.

"We're gonna end him anyway, you big dope," grinned Kelly. "Not so tough-talking now, are we?" she addressed the bleeding man disdainfully. "Seriously, if we had time, I'd wash your mouth out with soap first."

"Not even once, man," Sam shook his head sadly, "Drugs make you stupid. Like, dumb enough to try to carjack a harmless-looking little college student type."

"I think perhaps he didn't read the part of the script where I stick a blade in his guts," Kelly suggested. "Nice piece, though," she took a gun from her pocket, and inspected it again by the light. "Walther. The Germans know how to manufacture precision machinery. Obviously a low-life like you stole it from somebody, it's too good for you. I bet you wouldn't even know how to maintain it properly. I knew I wanted it the moment you stuck it in my ribs."

"Let that be a lesson to scumbags everywhere," Sam wagged a finger, "If you're going to pick what you think is a soft target, make sure you don't have a gun she wants."

"Bit late for you, of course," Kelly shrugged, "And they won't find you until the Spring melt. Well, what's left of you, anyway. Not that anybody will be looking, I suspect. Unless it's your dealer." She brandished a wad of notes. "Because a dick-wad like you could only have this if you'd scammed somebody a lot further up the food chain, right?" The look in the would-be carjacker's eyes suggested that she'd hit the nail on the head. "So we're probably doing you a favour. You'd only stick it up your nose or in your arm. And you're as good as dead anyway."

"So, heave away," Sam said cheerfully, reaching to pull the man from the trunk. "Hey, stop wiggling! I don't want to twist my back, I'll miss out on Family Fight Club..."

"Oh, you big baby," sighed Kelly fondly. "Here, hold him over the edge." She produced a blade – the one she'd stuck between her assailant's ribs hours earlier – and cut his throat. "There. Better?"

"I knew there was a reason I love you."

Sam let the corpse go, and it hit the icy water with a splash, disappearing beneath the ice with the current.

"He'll be halfway to the next state before any of him shows up," Kelly slid back into the passenger seat, and reached for the glove box, where she retrieved a wet wipe and began to clean her knife meticulously. "And you said that geography unit I took would never be useful for anything."

"Okay, okay, I stand corrected," Sam grumbled with good humour, restarting the car.

"So," Kelly resumed as he pulled back onto the tar, "Castiel is the demon, Meg isn't actually a demon Bobby just thinks she acts like one, Ruby is a vampire, Andy and Veronica are werewolves, so Connor is their pup, and Jo is a succubus..."

"She's not. A succubus. We've tested her to make sure. Besides, she's far randier than any mere succubus would be."

"Have you ever wondered if perhaps she's a different sort of fugly?"

"Oh, she is. She's a 'Jo'. A ferocious predator that preys on Deans. There's no way to counter a Jo, or ward against one. At least, not that Dean's ever found. He's threatened to try consecrated iron, once or twice."

"What does she say to that?"

"Oh, she usually just grabs his ass, no matter what he says."

"I like her already."

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

The yard was lightly and picturesquely dusted with snow when they finally pulled in under a heavy cloud cover. There were two small children, heavily muffled against the cold, awkwardly making haphazard snowballs, and throwing them without much accuracy, but with plenty of enthusiasm.

"Well, Andy and Veronica are here," Sam noted, "So are Ellen and Jo."

"They both look like guys," Kelly remarked, indicating the adults with the children.

"They are," Sam replied, "That's Dean, and That's Andy. But look." He pointed across the yard. "Anatomically correct snowman. Or, more accurately snowpornstar. Jo was here. Dean'll kick it over as soon as he notices."

The rugged up men looked up, and both faces broke into smiles. Dean scooped up RJ, and came striding over, grabbing Sam in a hug as soon as he was out of the car.

"Sammy!" he positively beamed, "You made it!"

"Well, I couldn't possibly miss one of Meg's Christmas dinners," Sam beamed back. "Hey there, RJ, you keepin' Mom and Dad busy?"

"Sa!" RJ patted Sam's face, and Sam shrieked as a pattering of snow went down his shirt.

"Eeeeeee! Cold hands! Hey," he beckoned to Kelly, "Guys, this is Kelly, the one I've told you about."

"Hey there," Dean offered a hand and a welcoming smile, "Welcome to the chaos that is our extended family Christmas!"

"I just hope we don't scare her off," Andy commented in his broad accent, also shaking hands, "She's way outta your league, mate."

"Oh, I can assure you, I don't scare easily," Kelly waved a hand airily. "So, this must be RJ and Connor!"

RJ seemed entranced by her long hair, while Connor hid his face and peeked out.

"Let's get inside," suggested Dean, "Before you guys freeze to death... hey, is that... JO! What did I say about snow people? We've got the kids out here!"

There was a sudden crunching thump, and an exclamation of displeasure in an English accent.

"OW! What are you doing, you directionally-challenged pillock!"

"I was about to ask you the same thing, you whining old woman," griped a gravelly voice in reply, "We're meant to be heading into the house."

"I'm going backwards, you loon!"

"In more ways than one, it would seem."

"Look, that makes you cox, you're meant to be steering."

"You're the one who keeps dropping his end."

"That's because you ran me into the rosebushes! Remind me to screen you for dementia before you leave, you daft old codger."

"I think your receding hairline might be letting your head get cold and freezing your brain."

"Don't you make fun of my hairline, or I shall have my darling little doggie pass gas in your general direction."

"You do know that you could be tried in The Hague for owning that disgusting creature?"

"Look, why are we doing this anyway? There are youngsters who could do this much more easily. Why do we end up with the bloody wood box, every damned time?"

The litany of complaints shuffled closer. Dean grinned as two older men, one wearing a bright pink beanie resplendent with large pom-poms and one with a colourful scarf tied over his head babushka-style, staggered around the house and into view with a large box of firewood carried awkwardly between them.

"Oh, look, a reason to stop!" chirped the shorter man with the British accent happily, dropping his end.

"OW!" yelped the other one, a taller man with greying hair and beard, "Oh,_ tace_, you gas-bag," he grumbled, "Now look what you did!"

"_Ascendo tuum_," the bescarfed one wiped his hands and beamed hugely. "Sam, you're here! Wonderful!"

"Sam, my boy," beamed the beanied one, "Sam, young, physically fit, Sam, capable of helping with the wood box Sam..."

"Don't mind Alistair, he has complete _stercus_ for brains," sniffed the bescarfed Brit. "I would guess that you, my dear, are Kelly, would I be right?"

"You would," Sam smiled, "Kelly, this grumpy old fart is Doc Crowley, and his dance partner there is Alistair, who is doomed to disappointment, because I gotta bring our stuff in."

"You can't blame me for trying," sighed Alistair philosophically. "Come on then, Crowley, get your _digit_ out of your _podex_ and let's get this inside."

"We can't take him anywhere, we really can't," apologised Crowley as the two older men shuffled to the house with the wood box, bickering the whole time.

Sam was about to pull bags from the back seat when a truck pulled into the yard. The driver climbed out of the cab, and looked expectantly at them.

"Delivery here for Singer?" he enquired.

Andy swore under his breath as the house door banged open. As Alistair and Crowley took the wood inside, a behatted figure strode out, grinning hugely.

"Sam!" called Bobby, "About time, boy, I was goin' to send out a search party!"

"Well, we got delayed," Sam explained.

"And I shall expect a proper introduction to your lady friend," Bobby grinned like a loon, "As soon as I get this squared away." He spoke with the driver of the delivery truck, signed the clipboard, and indicated that the crew should leave the consignment resting against a tree.

"What the hell is that?" asked Kelly, as Sam burst into laughter.

"It's the extension for the dining table," Sam chuckled, as three men struggled to move the huge piece of hardwood timber, "It goes in the middle, to make the table longer. It's Andy and Dad's job to wrangle it every year. A few years ago, they set fire to the original. Bobby just got another one made, and they threw that one in the stream. So Bobby replaced it. Every year they find a way to destroy it, and Bobby just goes after 'em loaded with rock salt, and gets another one."

"It nearly didn't get here in time," gruffed Bobby, watching the truck leave, "But now it's here, Andy! John! Get your asses into gear children, and get it inside!"

Sam saw his father appear at the house door. John's face lit up when he saw Sam and Kelly, then fell when he saw the table extension.

"Sam!" first he hugged his son, then turned to Kelly. "You must be Kelly," he smiled, "We've heard a lot about you!"

"All good, I hope," she replied.

"Kelly, Dad, Dad, Kelly," Sam made belated introductions.

"Well, don't just stand there," demanded Bobby, "Get my table insert inside!"

"Yes, Massa," John performed an exaggerated bow, as Andy ushered Connor over to Dean and shucked quickly out of his clothes, then he shrugged, and changed...

Kelly let out a little squeak.

"Oh, God, I'm sorry, Kel," Sam put a reassuring arm around her, "I should've warned you, Andy shifts to move that thing."

"It's okay," Kelly managed a smile, as the seven-plus-foot werewolf drooped its ears and whined in apology, "Sam's told me about you, but I've never seen an alpha male before. No offense, but the few Old North werewolves I've encountered, I've pumped 'em full of silver before they could get this close."

"Come on, Lassie," sighed John, "Let's shift this thing. We can plot its death later."

With a recoginsably grumpy expression, the werewolf strode to the table insert and heaved it to his shoulder, then stalked towards the house, with John steadying and steering it from behind as he bellowed for Meg to hold the door open.

There was a high pitched yipping, and they turned to see Dean hanging onto Connor, who had also changed, and was yapping in excitement. The picture of a small werewolf pup, still in his human outdoor clothing, was completely adorable.

"Oh, Connor," humphed Dean, "You'll get too hot if you shift in your clothes! He, er, gets excited when he sees his Daddy shift," he explained to Kelly, struggling to keep hold of the youngster, "He doesn't have complete control over it yet, and he wants to go run with Daddy."

"Oh, aren't you just adorable!" laughed Kelly.

"Why don't we all go inside before we freeze," suggested Bobby, herding them towards the house, "And we'll see if Daddy can get you to shift back, mister."

The inside of the house was warm, and fragrant with the smells of baking.

"Meg made cupcakes!" trilled Dean happily, helping himself from the plate of cakes that were decorated with a holly motif. "I love me some cupcakes!" The toddlers, one human-shaped and one not, clamoured for treats of their own, so he smilingly obliged.

"I always make cupcakes," smiled a woman wearing an apron, "Otherwise, I'd never hear the end of it from you. Or the other children. Hey!" She slapped his hand away from an intricate gingerbread Christmas cottage that would've made Thomas Kinkade hand in his brushes. "Not until tomorrow! It's a Christmas cottage! Which means, you can't eat it until Christmas!" Dean pouted harder than either of the kids as he shooed them out.

"Kelly, this is Meg, Bobby's shirt-sacrificing housekeeper," Sam introduced them, "Meg, this is Kelly."

"We finally get to meet you!" Meg beamed. "I've heard so much about you."

"I've heard so much about your cooking," Kelly replied. "Sam says you're on a mission to make everybody fat."

"Well, I did have Doc in here reading me the riot act about the nutritional defects of my syrup-candied bacon," Meg confided, "But once I'd fed him some, he shut up about it pretty quickly."

"Come on, come and meet Mom," urged Sam. He dropped their bags in the hallway and ushered Kelly into a large living room.

Bobby had, as usual, gone a bit nuts with the Christmas decorations. The tree was a masterpiece of decoration, Dean having given free rein to his inner Martha Stewart. Brightly wrapped gifts were piled under it, and Dean was doing his best to stop the two toddlers from manhandling them. Alistair and Crowley were still sniping at each other as they stacked the wood for the cheerily burning fire. A man in a shirt and tie was in earnest conversation with an older blonde woman. Two younger women giggled as one slunk up behind Dean, and grabbed his ass. Two more women sat together on the sofa. The one whom Kelly recognised as Sam's mother was holding a baby, cooing at the tiny bundle, as the other looked on in amusement.

"Sam!" Mary looked up, handed the baby back, and sprang to her feet, crossing the room to hug him. "Oh, my baby is home!" she crooned.

"Hey, Mom," Sam endured the maternal affection with good grace. "Mom, this is Kelly, who I've told you about, Kelly, this is my Mom."

"Hello, dear," Mary positively beamed.

"It's wonderful to meet you, Mrs Winchester," replied Kelly.

"Oh, call me Mary, please!" Mary laughed, "The only people who call me 'Mrs Winchester' are cops, or people who are planning to try to kill me. Or maybe," her eyes became humorously sly, "Maybe, you'd like to call me Mom, too? Which would be appropriate, if you had anything to announce...?"

"Mooooom!" yelped Sam, his face turning red.

"You must excuse Mary," said the gravel-voiced man, who had drifted over, "She is shamelessly campaigning to see her sons happily paired off, married off, and breeding. If you are to have any romantic involvement with Sam, you must learn to expect not-so-subtle hints about how many grandchildren she would like you to present to her. She has spent the last week talking pointedly about the advantages of not leaving too large a gap between RJ and the next one..."

"Oh, God," moaned Sam, "Kelly, this is Castiel, or Cas, Bobby's shark and Dean's best friend, that's Ruby, who's laughing her head off while Jo does her best to embarrass Dean to death..."

"Hi!" trilled Jo, "You want a turn?" She slapped Dean's ass again. "Oh, that's so firm..."

"...That's Ellen, Bobby's accountant, who is Jo's mom who should keep her on a leash, and this," he drew her over to the sofa, where the woman with the baby smiled shyly in greeting, "This is Veronica, Better Half of the walking rug who hauled the table in. And this..."

"Hello, Kelly," Veronica greeted her, "This is Connor's sister, Sabine."

Kelly peered into the pink baby blanket. A tiny face peered out at her. "Oh, she is just gorgeous!" she gushed, "How old is she?"

"Four months," Veronica grinned, "Would you like to hold her?"

Kelly sat down, and took the baby carefully, jiggling the little girl. "Oh, aren't you a pretty girl!" she cooed, "Aren't you just a beautiful girl!"

The baby extracted a small fist from the blanket, waved it, and made a demanding noise.

"What's that? Do you want Mommy back?" asked Kelly. "Are you wet, sweetie?"

The baby made the demanding noise again, louder, and then kind of...

Kelly blinked, and she was holding a tiny wolf pup. The furry little face poked a questing snout in her direction, and yipped.

"You know, I think you've even cuter like this," Kelly told her.

"Oh, that means she's hungry," sighed Ronnie. "She likes to shift to feed. Seriously, this kid never stops eating! Where does it go? Is there a crack in the space-time continuum between her mouth and her ass? I'll take her upstairs, I'll have to shift to nurse her... ah, there you are," she looked up as John came into the room with Andy, still in wolf form, trailing him. "Do what you can to get your son looking human before dinner, will you?"

The he-wolf managed a surprisingly expressive face, which clearly conveyed the message:_ Why is it that when he's being good he's our son, but when he does something wrong, he's suddenly __my__ son?_

"Joys of parenthood, dude," Dean clapped the hairy monster on the arm, as Andy sighed, hunkered down in front of his panting pup, and whuffed to him, wrestling him out of his clothes and trying to get him to understand that he had to resume his human shape.

Christmas Eve dinner was the usually informal affair that such gatherings of the extended Singer-Winchester family usually were.

"Don't eat too much," Dean warned Kelly, apparently negating his own advice as he reached for the potatoes again, "You gotta leave lots of room for tomorrow! And tomorrow, don't forget to leave room for cupcakes and gingerbread afterwards!"

"Being female, you will be permitted to enter the kitchen," Castiel informed her, "And although I do not pretend to know what rituals are conducted in there, you will presumably be issued your own dish cloth with which to snap any males who stray into your territory uninvited."

"You can help us with the table," Ruby smiled.

"Speaking of the table," Ellen said, "How do you two idiots intend to destroy that thing this year?"

"I thought maybe hurling it from the roof," mused John, as Bobby glowered at him, "It's hardwood, though, so we'll have to get up on the second floor. Any ideas, Andy?"

"What about using it as a toboggan," Andy was overseeing Connor's attempts to feed himself, "And smashing it into a tree?"

"I will pump you idjits full of salt rounds," Bobby growled.

"You do that every year," acknowledged Andy.

"Totally worth it," grunted John. Mary slapped his arm.

"If we could dispense with the lunatic revenge fantasies of the paranoid trapezophobics amongst us," Doc Crowley, "How is college, Sam?"

"A couple of my professors wanted me to go academic," Sam explained, "But I want to sit the bar exam in February. I've stuffed my head with all this, I wanna do something with it."

"A colleague would be most welcome in dealing with Bobby's business interests," nodded Castiel, "Since he seems to find ever more inventive ways of exercising my professional ingenuity. I am currently bringing a suit against..."

"Hey, knock it off!" yapped Ellen, "What have I told you about talking shop at the dinner table?"

"Not to," admitted Castiel. "On pain of you burning my trench coat."

"Right," nodded Ruby, "You bend the law over and make it your bitch. We know that. We want to hear important stuff! Like, how did you guys meet?" she smiled at Sam and Kelly, "Was it in class?"

"Did your eyes meet over an assignment?" Dean asked dreamily, "That would be so romantic."

"Or was it the library?" asked Mary, "Sam loved the library, even when he was really young!"

"Latin conversation class is my guess," beamed Crowley.

"Tell me you didn't run into her car with a shopping cart, or something?" pleaded John.

"Can she get her ankles behind her head?" piped Jo, leering at Dean. "I can..."

"Enough!" barked Bobby, glaring at Jo, who grinned back utterly unrepentant while Dean let out a horrified shriek and blushed, "We got children and Dean at the table, missy. Why don't you just let them tell it?"

Sam and Kelly looked at each other, and smiled.

"I guess it was kind of romantic," he agreed, his hand finding hers, "We met over a corpse."

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

Sam fell easily back into college. When he had somehow, miraculously, been reunited with his big brother, and the rest of his family, during a Hunt, he'd spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with them, and been surprised to find himself keen to resume the study he'd taken up as a form of escape, from his foster family, from the endless parade of therapists, from the discreet FBI surveillance. He'd worked hard to convince them that he was normal, well-adjusted, and ready to become a useful member of society. He liked to imagine the consternation it must've caused after the fire where he lost Jess, and he'd dropped off the radar, and gone Hunting. He hoped he'd given people with badges ulcers, and paperwork.

Of course, that all went out the window when he proudly enrolled at Harvard under his real name, Winchester. Classes had barely started when he noticed his first discreet shadow. The guy was good. Real good. He contemplated inviting his Mom to come visit him – she had a penchant for murdering FBI agents, especially if she thought they were any sort of threat to one of her babies – but she'd been caught up in Ruby's wedding plans, and he didn't want to interrupt, so he'd sharpened a plastic knife from a college cafeteria for old time's sake, and dispatched the unsuspecting shadow carefully (but not until he'd done his part of the group assignment). Hunting solo had taught him as much as his family ever had about how to dispose of a corpse discreetly and permanently. He was pretty sure he'd given ulcers to the cops and the agents who'd come to interview him about the disappearance, too, and that made him happy.

He had his family back, he was acing his studies, life was good. There were times when he'd see couples on campus, or he'd be at home and see the way Dean and Ruby, or his Mom and Dad, looked at each other, and feel a little wistful. It wasn't like he lacked female company if he wanted it – he didn't live like a monk, and occasionally took a gleeful delight in horrifying his big brother with graphic descriptions of ladies he'd spent an athletic night with. He even bedded one of the agents they sent to watch him, just for fun. But... he'd tried that whole 'couples' thing. It hadn't worked out for him. Jess was dead. So, he decided just to be grateful for what he had, and be happy with that.

That didn't stop his brother and his mother from hounding him on the topic of monogamous bliss, though.

"They just want to see you happy, Sam," Doc Crowley had told him during a Summer break, when Sam confided to his godfather that his family were driving him nuts on the topic. "And I'm afraid that the driving you nuts thing, well, they're your family. That's their job."

"If it's meant to happen, it will happen," Ruby told him with great certainty.

So, it was something of a surprise when he decided to follow up a succession of corpses that turned up in a derelict Boston Harbour warehouse. He was trying to work out what might be involved – ghoul, revenant, rugaru – and found himself poking around in the warehouse after dark looking for clues when he discovered that it was, in fact, a very angry spirit.

The damned thing had thrown him off a loading landing, and was coming after him with a longshoreman's hook, when there was a sudden whizz of rock salt blasting overhead.

He turned around to see a brunette with a sawn-off shotgun reaching down to grab him by the jacket. "Come on, Tiny," she grumbled, "I can't pick you up."

"Uh, thanks. Ow." He stumbled to his feet, wincing. "So, uh, not a ghoul or a revenant, then."

"If you'd stuck around for the second autopsy, you'd have worked that out," she shrugged as they made their way rapidly out of the warehouse.

"I had to get back to class," he protested a bit sheepishly. In the dim overhead light, he recognised her as one of the student types who'd been present at the autopsy he'd wangled his way into. "What's a med student doing running around looking for angry ghosts, anyway?"

"Saving your ass, apparently," she rolled her eyes. "You gotta be law, right? Only a lawyer-to-be could have his head so far up his ass that he'd go after a ghost without salyeeeEEEEE!"

From the cover of a rusted cargo container, a slavering, scaly figure sprang, grabbing the woman by the hair and pulling her backwards as she flailed ineffectively at it with the shotgun.

Sam pulled the gas torch from his jacket pocket and slammed it into the creature's head until it staggered back and fell to its knees, then he lit the torch, pulled out a can of lighter fluid, and set the monster on fire.

"Only a med student would be arrogant enough to go after a rugaru without a torch," he grinned at her. "I figured it might be piggybacking on something else, feeding from fresh kills."

"Yeah, you smartass, you're law," she grumbled, rubbing her neck. "Thanks, I guess." She stuck out a hand. "I can't just keep calling you Tiny. I'm Kelly. Kelly Remington."

"Sam Winchester," he shook her hand. "Just couldn't let the Hunt go, huh?"

"Fraid not," she shrugged, "Once I figured out something wasn't right with the corpses that were turning up. Speaking of which, I assume you read the police reports?"

He nodded. "Which bit in particular?"

"The bit about them being stripped of any personal possessions of any value. Which leads me to suspect that we might have some scavengers who are supposedly more human cashing in on the anger of Mr Eddie Weissmann, very dead and very pissed off longshoreman..."

Both of them froze; the sounds of people trying to make their way closer quietly came to them on the night air.

"You'll have to excuse me," Kelly grinned, fading back into the shadows, "I just gotta do a little bit more cleaning up..."

It turned out that, for Kelly, 'cleaning up' meant lying in wait for the lowlifes who'd been taking advantage of the presence of a ghost and a rugaru. They'd been waiting until the bodies were abandoned then picking them clean, she explained in a barely audible whisper as the two men bent in confusion over the smouldering rugaru, poking at it to see what they could find.

Without hesitation, she darted towards them, a knife suddenly in one hand, and proceeded to gut one, and cut the other's throat.

Sam stood, mesmerised, as she quickly rifled them. He'd never seen anything like it. It was as if she was dancing...

"Every little bit helps," she shrugged, pocketing her takings, "Tuition's a bitch. Don't get squeamish on me, just because I like to do a little pest control when the opportunity presents itself. I'd hate to have to shoot you; it'd take a hell of a hole to get rid of your carcass."

Sam laughed out loud at that. "Kelly Remington," he smiled, "Would you allow me to assist you with the disposal of the night's work, and then, would you care to join me for a beer?"

She smiled as she wiped her knife. "I'd like that," she replied.

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

"...Well, after that, we salted and burned Eddie Weissman - his hook was in a local harbor history museum - then, one thing led to another," Sam finished, "And, well, eighteen months later, here we are."

Dean let out an unfortunately unmanly little squeal of delight as a ripple of 'Awwwwww's travelled around the table.

"It's just like Mom and Dad!" he enthused, "It's just like me and Ruby! That's so romantic!"

"It's about damned time you brought her along to meet us," Bobby huffed.

"We wanted to make sure," Kelly told them, "We wanted to make sure we were..."

"...The right ones for us," Sam finished.

"So, what will you do when you graduate, Kelly?" asked Andrew.

"Well," Kelly smiled, "Sam has said he wants to come and work for Mr Singer... Bobby... and I've always liked South Dakota, so, we've been thinking..."

"...We've, uh, decided we might like to, you know," Sam squirmed a little, "Find a place not too far from here, then we can..."

Any description of Kelly's plans to complete her internship was drowned in whoops of delight.

"Oh, God," moaned Sam, "You're all doing this on purpose..."

"Of course we are!" chirped Jo happily. "Hey, Kelly, can I be a bridesmaid?"

The shriek of outrage that the question drew from Sam amused the entire assemblage, until Bobby called for a restoration of a minimum of decorum, because that sort of uproar during dinner can play havoc with a body's digestion.

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

Christmas Day was the joyful organized chaos that it usually was. Meg ruled over the kitchen with an iron fist in an oven glove, aided by the other women, who all snapped their dishcloths at Dean when he made his inevitable foraging expedition for cupcakes and emerged, victorious if bearing several welts.

Kelly joined in Family Fight Club, horrifying Doc, who attempted to recruit her as a colleague in medicine into his annual protest with Alistair against everybody else's Christmas game. He was especially horrified when RJ and Connor were given Nerf bats to swing at each other, giggling and shrieking with laughter as their father's egged them on (although proceedings had to be called to a halt when, in his excitement, Connor shapeshifted and apparently got stuck again).

Christmas lunch was, as always, an exercise in delightful degustation, followed by Crowley and Alistair entertaining the company with a selection of light opera parts written for women. The menfolk assisted with the clean-up, under Meg's ever-watchful eye, and John and Andy sneaked away to drive Bobby's heaviest towing vehicle over the centre extension of the dining table, which resulted in the old man once more taking up his shotgun loaded with salt and chasing them around the house, peppering them with rock salt and cusswords. The ladies watched over the two toddlers having post-lunch fun in the snow, before they wore themselves out and were taken upstairs for a nap. Sam was amused to see Kelly join Jo and Ruby in construction of another snowman – with a graduate of medicine participating, it was more anatomically correct than ever, and, as Kelly turned out to have a bit of a talent for sculpture, the face bore an uncanny resemblance to his big brother.

Later on Christmas Night, when the household had largely retired for the evening, he stood, looking out at the snow-dusted yard, the remains of the fire Dean had built around the snowman gently steaming, and let out a metaphorical breath he hadn't even realised he was holding.

"Were you that worried?" Kelly smiled at him, putting an arm around his waist as she joined him at the window.

"It's just... my family is not exactly... normal," he began.

"Neither am I," she shot back, "And your family may not be normal, but they're fun, and they're interesting. I'll take that over 'normal' any day. Your mom even asked me if I wanted to come along next time she's stalking an FBI agent."

"She asked you that?" Sam's eyebrows shot up. "Wow. That's the Mom stamp of approval, all right."

"Seriously," she leaned against him, "I really like them. I don't have any of my own, really, but yours is all I could ask for."

"Oh, God," he buried his nose in her hair, "I am so glad to hear you say that. I was so worried about... everything, really."

"Well, don't be," she slapped his arm playfully. "I can just be myself around them. No need to pretend to be anything I'm not. They get me."

"I think they do," he agreed, "And I'm so glad you get them."

She turned around, and went up on her toes to kiss him. "Merry Christmas, Sam Winchester," she smiled.

"Merry Christmas back at ya, Kelly Remington," he replied.

They stood looking out over the yard for a little while longer, comfortable and contented in each other's company.

Life was a funny thing, Sam mused, as they watched the snow drift down gently. He'd been happy just to find his family, and find his direction. Finding this gorgeous woman, his adorable, intelligent, funny, sassy, capably murderous soulmate, was the icing on the cake. Yep, life was good.

There was just one last thing to.

He'd been trying to figure out how to go about it for the last couple of weeks, planning it like he would a Hunt, trying to get the timing, the place, the execution just right, but he couldn't pull together a plan he was happy with. So, he decided to throw planning to the winds, and just do it.

"Kelly," he announced, "There's something I want to ask you."

He pulled the small box out from his pocket, and went down on one knee.

* * *

For those of us who don't speak a lot of Latin, _tace_ = shut up, _ascendo tuum_ = up yours, _stercus_ = shit, _digit_ = finger, _podex_ = arse(hole). Of course, Alistair and Doc Crowley are educated men, so they like to abuse each other in an intellectual fashion.

Keep the bunnylets coming, and maybe another one will bite!


	11. Baby Baby Baby - Part the First

Oh, the Real Life are a bummer, innit? So many annoying things to do. Like, get up in the morning, go to work, do a job in order to get paid, it sucks the fat one, truly it does...

This was going to be a one-shot, but it looks as though it's going to have to be in two parts. A number of Denizens wanted to see Sam left to mind the kids – you do enjoy your Sam whumpage, don't you? – so I've called this one...

* * *

**Baby Baby Baby**

_**Part the First**_

Sam really looked forward to the occasions on which he was able to catch up with Kelly. In a different world, where they didn't Hunt, he sometimes wondered whether they might've found their way into a more permanent, maybe even official arrangement, but, well, they had monogamy, and even better, they had Frances Mary Winchester, and for both of them, that was enough.

So it was with a stab of unalloyed pleasure that he heard her truck pull into the yard, followed by the woofing greetings of her dog Morgan reacquainting herself with the dogs of Singer Salvage. Even the bruises and remains of a twisted ankle that he was carrying courtesy of one seriously pissed off poltergeist, and the sniffling remains of a pesky cold, weren't enough to dampen the anticipation of seeing his lady friend and his daughter. And, even better, getting to spend several hours alone with them; Dean was taking RJ out for the day, and Bobby was headed to a dog show with Ronnie. Maybe God didn't hate him after all.

"Hey, Sammy, your date's here!" Dean bellowed from the kitchen, where RJ was 'helping' him to pack items into a hamper. "No, little dude, you can't just take a whole jar of peanut butter." RJ patted the jar again, and made an insistent noise; Dean shrugged, put the jar in the hamper, and threw in a couple of spoons.

"You cannot possibly be going to let your kid spoon peanut butter straight from the jar?" huffed Sam as he entered the kitchen.

"Well, you'll just bitch if I let him use his fingers," shrugged Dean. "Don't look at me like that, picnic lunching is supposed to be about finger food and fun!"

"Well, when his diaper needs changing afterwards, you're on your own," Sam informed him.

"Don't you listen to him," instructed Dean, "He's just jealous because he can't come along and do man-time with us. He's gotta hang out with the girls, while we go to a car show, and then do some fishing."

"Dean, I don't think it counts as fishing just yet," Sam interjected. And technically, it probably didn't, but RJ loved to paddle in the water, throw in small stones, hurl pieces of bait skyward, and generally get himself wet and filthy under the watchful eyes of his father, and his father's dog. If anything it probably scared off any fish within catching distance, and Dean didn't really get any actual fishing done anyway, but it was something approaching father-son time, and so was probably A Good Thing for them both. And RJ had displayed a fascination for shiny machinery from a very young age – he would no doubt enjoy the car show as much as Dean.

"He's working up to it, Sam," Dean asserted, "He understands that the bait goes in the water – mostly – which is a good start. I could tell a story about another toddler, who decided to lure the fish out of the water and onto the shore by laying a careful trail of jelly beans up from the waterline..."

"Jerk," muttered Sam, heading out to meet Kelly.

Dean was putting the finishing touches on lunch preparations ("Dean, you cannot take a can of blueberry pie filling on a picnic!" "It's okay Sam, we got a can opener. And you're always telling me I should encourage him to try fruit and vegetables"), as Sam brought Frances inside, took her from her travel capsule, and cuddled her close.

"She's gonna be one o' them kids who doesn't learn to walk until she's two, on account o' never bein' put down," warned Bobby.

"Screw you," huffed Sam good-naturedly, kissing his daughter, "She likes cuddles."

"At least he's cuddling a female," Dean pointed out, "We gotta take what we can get. You know, Kelly, there's absolutely no reason why you can't resume intimate relations a couple of months after birth, and you'll have the house to yourselves – there was this girl in Colorado once, she had the most adorable two-month-old kid, and her asshole boyfriend walked out on her, but she didn't let it slow her down..."

"Gah!" yelped Sam, shooting Dean a searing Bitchface #5.5™ , which is to say, an expression that was halfway between _Bitchface_ #5™ (My Private Life Is SO None Of Your Business, Jerk) and Bitchface #6™ (I SO Do NOT Want To Hear The Gory Details Of One Of Your Sexual Conquests, Jerk). "Don't you have a car show to be at?"

"Want us out from under your feet already?" Dean grinned lewdly, as the sound of Ronnie's truck pulling into the yard came to them. "Ah, and here's Bobby's ride. So, the idea is to take it slowly, and woman superior might be a bit more comfortable until things get warmed up..."

"I hate you," grumbled Sam, blushing as Kelly eyed him speculatively and surreptitiously pinched his ass.

"Bobby, get your arse into gear," yelled Ronnie, banging in through the door with Connor gurgled happily on her hip.

"Should you be driving around that pregnant?" asked Dean.

"She-wolves hunt right up until they whelp, and very soon after," she told him briskly, "Most female predators do. And I'm still agile enough to sit you on your backside, smartarse. Bobby! Bobby? Where is he?"

"Right here," Bobby came striding back into the kitchen, putting away his cell, with a grim expression. "Shore leave is cancelled, people, we got a fugly emergency on our hands."

"What are we talking, and how many?" asked Dean, immediately all business.

"Just got a call from Seb, he's four hours north-east of here," Bobby told them. "A nest of vampires is movin', and killin'."

"In daylight?" asked Kelly, incredulous.

"Uh-huh," Bobby nodded, "It's only a small place, just locals there during the off-season, and it sounds like they're plannin' the 30-Days-Of-Night thing, but without botherin' with the midnight sun. He's got most of 'em holed up in the general store, but they can't hold out forever – the bloodsuckers are turning the ones they can catch."

"If we get there during daylight hours, we have a better chance of ganking them," said Ronnie.

"So, saddle up, children," instructed Bobby, "I got dead man's blood, you idjits get your long blades. Sam, you're on babysitting detail."

"What? Huh?" Sam blinked as Ronnie put Connor down, whuffing to him briefly. The boy grinned up at Sam trustingly, and smiled. "Wait! You can't go Hunting, you're pregnant!"

"Watch me," she snapped back.

"We'll be as quick as we can," Kelly reached up and pecked his cheek, "Look after Frankie, you know the drill."

"Wha-...? But, you only gave birth a couple of months ago!" Sam yelped.

Kelly gave him a smile that reminded him of Ronnie baring her fangs. "Female predators, Sam," Dean reminded him.

"How come I have to stay behind?" he demanded.

"Because that ankle of yours is not yet up to a knock-down, drag-out, cut-its-head-off fight with a nest," Bobby told him firmly.

"And nobody wants to be stuck in a car with you sniffling like a Belieber who missed out on tickets to Justinfest," added Dean. "Unless they're too much for you. In your weakened state, an' all."

"Maybe one of us should stay with him," Kelly said to Ronnie, "In case he can't cope."

"What do you mean, in case I can't cope?" demanded Sam. "In my weakened state, you jerk?"

"Kelly might be onto something," mused Ronnie, "Kids can be a real handful."

"Maybe I should stay instead," suggested Dean, "Sam can go, and stay at base camp, provided he doesn't have to move around or breathe too much he'll be all right…"

"Excuse me?" Sam said, "Why do you all think that Dean could manage alone, but I couldn't? See that kid-shaped thing, the one that answers to RJ? See this baby-shaped thing here? I've helped look after 'em since they arrived. I can change a diaper, I can prepare a bottle, I can do a feed, I can bathe the wigglingest kid, I do a damned fine bedtime documentary, and, with the help of candy teeth, I do the best version of fangs-out-peek-a-boo you can do without being a werewolf!"

"Are you sure, son?" asked Bobby worriedly. "Frances there is a real young 'un…"

"She's my daughter," Sam said firmly, "I can look after my own daughter. See?" He held Frances up. "She's gone to sleep already."

"We'll need to take the dogs," Dean told him, "But you've still got Rumsfeld and Patch to watch the yard. And old Janis, to trip up anything that gets too close."

"The old girl does love her a nap these days," nodded Bobby.

"Well, so do these guys," asserted Sam, indicating his sleeping daughter, and Connor, who, having pulled himself up on Sam's pants leg, sat down again, yawning. "So we'll be fine."

They were quickly ready to head out; Dean kissed RJ, and handed him over to his uncle.

"I'm sorry, buddy," he apologised, "I'll have to write you a rain check on our man-time, but Daddy's gotta go to work, and it's important, okay?"

"Dada!" RJ said understandingly, and gave his father a reassuring pat on the cheek.

"So, you be good for Uncle Sammy, okay?" Dean prompted.

"Sama!" chirped RJ, putting his arms around Sam's neck and hugging.

"Good man," smiled his father. "Call me if you have any problems," he instructed Sam.

"What?" Sam gaped at him. "Dean, you're gonna be dealing with a nest of vampires with delusions of gluttony, and you want me to call you? What are you gonna do? Say to the bloodsucker that's trying to eat you 'Oh, hey, can you just wait a second, it's my kid brother, he's babysitting, and it sounds like he's having trouble working out how to unfold the change table again'? Get outta here."

"Yeah, yeah," muttered Dean, "Just don't drown in the dribble."

"Keep an eye on Connor," Ronnie warned him, "On the upside, we've been working on staying human while we eat, but he's been having a try at cruising."

"Hey, I've read about that!" Sam smiled, "That's when they start to move along holding on to the furniture and stuff, right? That's really cool!"

"I'm glad you think so," she smiled wryly, "It means that anything at knee height is now fair game."

"We'll be fine," Sam told them firmly, "Just get going, and deal with those fuckers before sunset."

He stood in the doorway, with sleeping Frances, nodding RJ and yawning Connor, to wave goodbye to the three departing vehicles.

"Well, looks like it's just us," he smiled, jiggling the ones he was holding. "We're gonna hold the fort here. We can have some real intellectual time. We can read some good books, maybe watch some good docos – honey badgers, of course – eat some sensible food, it'll be totally fun!"

Baby Frances blinked sleepily, yawned, and let out a long wet sharting noise that had no business coming from a baby that small. Whether this was a damning indictment of Sam's plans, or just a baby's call of nature, was not apparent.

"Ew," Sam wrinkled his nose as the smell wafted to him, "First thing, we gotta get missy here changed."

RJ giggled, and produced an even noisier emission. Connor laughed as though it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard.

"Fart jokes," Sam sighed, "They just never go out of fashion for some people. Come on, let's go get changed."

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

Sam headed for the living room, with the boys crawling eagerly after him, put Frances down on the sofa, then ratted through Frances's diaper bag. "Okay, let's see what we've got here... hey!" he called, as RJ and Connor crawled right past him like determined little tanks, "Where do you think you're going? Guys!" He leaped up, to head them off before they disappeared under the table.

Frances started to grizzle as he swept them both up. "You guys have gotta behave like big boys, while I look after Frankie, okay?" he told them. They regarded him seriously, then sat. He tried not to think too hard about what that was doing to RJ's diaper. "Okay, now I'll just change her first, then... hey!" The moment he picked up his daughter, they were off again.

The Winchesters had found out very early on just how fast and how far a determined RJ could crawl – it was somewhere between impressive and frightening. Put down for a few seconds, he could seemingly disappear, and make his way to the other end of the room, the hallway, or sometimes the house. When he was with Connor, they seemed to inspire each other to ever more astonishing feats of speed, distance, or disappearance if there was furniture they could fit under.

Sam put Frances down, trying to ignore the resumed grizzling, and headed for the two boys. At the last minute, they avoided his intercept, veering sharply left, and shot under the sofa just the way that Jimi Senior's descendents did at some point if they suspected they were going to be required to have a B-A-T-H.

"Come out of there!" he demanded. He was answered with giggles. "Right," he humphed, getting down on hands and knees, "Neither of you is too big to grab."

RJ swatted at his hand, giggling and dribbling, but Sam finally pulled him out. "Okay, Mister Jaeger," he announced, "You're next... hey!"

As he reached for Connor, RJ wiggled back in beside him.

"RJ! Ow!" he whacked his head on the underside of the sofa, "What are you doing? Back up! Oh, you can't. Hang tight, Frankie," he called to the baby, who was starting to fuss more loudly, "Daddy will be right with you. Okay, mister, back out from... Connor, come back here!"

He eventually retrieved both of them by grabbing one with each hand, and leopard crawling backwards. Looking around, his eye fell on the tangle of dog leashes in the corner.

A minute or so later, her had them both tethered to the leg of the table by the backs of their pants.

"Now then," he turned back to Frances, as RJ and Connor investigated their leashes, then settled into a clumsy tug-of-war with Oinker Stoinker, the Winchester dogs' favourite squeaky toy. "Let's get you cleaned up, missy."

She kicked and gurgled at him as he dealt with the mess, then wiggled as he put on a clean diaper. "Hold still," he told her, "No daughter of mine is goin' to get into the habit of lounging around bareassed. No nudism here, young lady."

She blew him a large spit bubble by way of comment.

RJ was a bit more of a challenge, as he was bigger, wigglier, and liked to crawl around bareassed, and on a few fine days Dean let him do exactly that. Sam kept a firm hold on him whilst wrangling him.

"Aha!" he cried in triumph, using the old diaper to shield himself from what Dean called RJ's 'Fire Brigade auditions', "Foiled! You're so predictable, dude, I'm onto you. Oh, God, what a mess, did you have to sit down and squish it around?"

They were just about done when RJ suddenly found a bit in the reserve tank, and managed to get Sam's shirt.

"Aaaaaargh! Oh, yuck!" Sam wiped fruitlessly at his shirt. "No fair with the double tap!" RJ smiled and giggled. "Yeah, yeah, laugh it up," grumbled Sam, wrestling his nephew back into his pants, "Now, how about we go look at some CONNOR!"

As he turned, the other boy smiled widely, cheerily and very greenly at him, and held up for inspection the highlighter he'd apparently managed to pull off the table and bite into.

"Oh, crap," muttered Sam, picking up the wet wipes, "Why can't you chew on your feet, like normal kids?"

With butts and face cleaned, Sam used a puppy trick on the boys: he gave them each a cracker to keep them occupied while he set up the playpen.

"I just gotta change my shirt," he told them, putting them in the pen, and picking up Frances, "Then I'll be right back down." The appeared to ignore him, intent on their snacks, so he headed upstairs, changed his shirt, then came back down.

"Okay, so as I was saying, we're gonna... huh?"

The playpen was empty. He looked around wildly.

RJ and Connor were under the table. RJ was chewing on a marker, turning his face blue, and Connor was chewing on a chair leg.

"Guys!" Sam put down Frances and retrieved the boys, then went for the wipes again. "Bobby doesn't let the dogs chew the furniture," he admonished the werewolf pup, "He sure as hell won't tolerate it from small children. Come on, let's go and watch some... honey badgers!"

"Haba!" burbled RJ enthusiastically, as Connor clapped.

"So, you guys just wait a sec while I get us set up," he put them back in the playpen, "Then I'll feed Frankie while we watch."

"Habaaaaaa!" enthused RJ.

He handed over more crackers, then headed to the kitchen to prepare a bottle for the baby. All he had to do was heat it up, so it didn't take long.

"Right, I got the bottle, I got the wrap, I got the wipes... guys? Hey!"

RJ and Connor were out of the playpen again. Connor had pulled a cushion from the sofa, and RJ's rear end stuck out from behind the furniture.

"Crap," Sam put down a protesting Frankie, who had been anticipating her bottle, and reached to pull RJ out from behind the furniture. "You're as bad as puppies," he complained. "And just for information, if you crap on the carpet back there, I'll rub your nose in it."

He settled them on the sofa and began to fiddle with the laptop. "Sta!" yelled RJ insistently, "Sta! Sta! Staaaaaa!"

"Yeah, hang on," Sam reached for RJ's favourite toy, Stanley, the soft toy honey badger he'd knitted for his nephew for Christmas, and handed it over. RJ had decided that the documentary experience was not complete unless Stanley was on hand. "There ya go."

"Sta," RJ held the toy out to Connor for inspection. His friend sniffed at it, then tasted it, and bounced up and down in approval.

"Okay," Sam tapped at the keys with one hand and jiggled Frances with the other, "Oh, look, a new one! Let's watch!"

Frances noisily drank her bottle while the boys laughed and hooted at the honey badger footage, Sam supplying the narrative as a honey badger hovered around a couple of young lionesses who'd just made a kill.

"Oh, look, what's he doing? 'Hellooooo ladies! Do I smell lunch?' 'Agnes! Agnes! That honey badger is back again!' 'Jesus, Mavis, what do you want me to do about it?' 'Chase it away! Bare your teeth at it!' 'Uh-uh, if I go chase it away, there won't be any liver left for me by the time I get back, you greedy cow. Where's Earl? Isn't he supposed to earn his keep by protecting the pride?' 'Earl? Earl! Get your lazy ass over here and scare that honey badger away!' 'Zzzzzzzz, oh, look, lunch, I'll just eat this while you girls get rid of the honey badger.' 'Oh, for fuck's sake, why do we even bother to keep him around?' 'So we can have cubs every year, I guess.' 'Seriously, is that the only reason? We hunt, he sleeps, he eats, he can't even get rid of a damned honey badger!' 'Until such time as IVF technology makes its way onto the Savannah, I'm afraid we're stuck with him. Christ, Earl, you are a messy eater, no wonder your breath is so bad'..."

Connor and RJ clapped and babbled their own accompanying commentary as Sam fed Frances, who burped heartily then spit up on him. He sighed, and dabbed at the stain.

"Now, I'll just put your cousin down for her nap," he announced, "Then we'll do lunch, okay?"

"La!" agreed RJ happily, "La!"

"Yep, you're Dean's kid," muttered Sam, "Okay, I just gotta get the crib together here…"

He put the boys back in the playpen, with Stanley and RJ's favourite wooden car toy and an instruction to stay put, double checked the closure on the pen, and went to fetch the baby's crib, setting it up in the study. He darted back a couple of times to eye them suspiciously, but they seemed happy enough just taking turns to whack the car with Stanley, so he put Frances down on the desk, and finished the job.

"Now, we'll just get this make up, Frankie, and… AAAAARGH!" As he turned to pick up his daughter, he suddenly realised that there were two small boys right at his feet, grinning up at him. Rather than stand on either of them, he twisted and rolled out of it awkwardly, whacking into the wall.

"OW!' he yelped, as both of them apparently applauded his acrobatics. "What the hell are you two doing here? How the fuck did you get out? Ow!" He felt his twisted ankle twinge.

"La!' chirped RJ stridently.

"Can you at least wait until your cousin is asleep?" pleaded Sam, putting Frances to bed. She grizzled, wanting to continue cuddles with Daddy.

"La!" demanded RJ. "La!"

"Lun!" added Connor. "Lun! Lun lun lunlunlun!"

"Shhhhhh!" he frowned at them, "Frankie has to go to sleep, which she can't do with you two complaining about the table service."

"LA!" yelled RJ. "LALALALALALALA!" Connor joined in. Frances burbled and moaned.

"Guys!" Sam yelped, "Can we shut the hell up for a minute?"

"LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" insisted the boys. Frances screwed up her little face, and wailed.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Sam muttered, picking up the baby. He looked around helplessly, then fashioned a makeshift sling from his plaid shirt, then picked up child in each arm. "How the hell you little assholes are getting out, I don't know," he grumbled, heading for the kitchen. "Let's try bribery."

Armed with a bag of the ginger cookies that the kids and the dogs liked to snack on when they were on the road, he headed back to the study, put the boys in the corner with fewest loose objects immediately to hand, and began to rock Frances. If the boys began to jabber again, he threw them more cookies.

"Sleepy time for Frankie, sleepy time for Frankie," he sang, "Time to go to sleep, now, not grizzle and be cranky…"

Frankie grizzled crankily.

He sighed. "Don't make me sing it," he begged his daughter.

She blew a bubble at him, and let out a squelchy unhappy sound.

Sam groaned. They had inadvertently discovered a song that would, somehow, work when his little girl wouldn't settle. It had been Dean who had found out that she could usually be lulled with it, but that didn't mean he had to like it…

"Twas on the good ship Venus, by Christ you should've seen us, the figurehead was a whore in bed and the mast a rampant penis, Frigging in the rigging, frigging in the rigging, frigging in the rigging, there was fuck all else to do..."

By the time he got to the description of the Captain's daughter Charlotte, Frances was asleep, so he put her in her crib, picked up the boys before they could wake her, and headed for the kitchen. Despite their protests, he wrangled them into their booster chairs before he started preparations. This necessitated dealing with one while having the other still crawling around, so he gave Connor a dog chew whilst he got RJ seated first.

"Stop wiggling!" he yelped, shoving a chew into RJ's mouth too when his nephew protested about Connor getting one while he didn't, "Or I'll nail you down!"

The chews at least kept them mostly quiet as he prepared sippy cups and the pasta and cheese and pieces of fruit that they could manage.

"Pa!" shouted RJ, indicating as he often did that he wanted to start with pudding. "Pa!"

"No deal, dude," frowned Sam, "First you eat the sensible stuff, then we'll see if you have any room left. Okay, so, lunch is served!"

He scooped up dual spoonfuls and shovelled – fortunately, neither of them were picky eaters. Unfortunately, neither of them were very tidy eaters. "That's why God invented bibs," Dean had told him seriously.

"Good stuff, huh?" he asked, as they both banged on the table for more. "Well, open up, here comes more... Connor, don't do that." Baby Jaeger bit down on the spoon. "Seriously, don't do that, it's not edible... Connor, let go!"

With a happy growl, Connor let his little puppy-wolf teeth show, and clamped down on the baby spoon.

"Hey!" yapped Sam, as Connor pulled away the spoon and shook it, "Don't do that!" He grabbed at the spoon, and yanked. Connor growled. "This is not a tug toy! Let go of the damned spoon!"

"Grrrrr," went Connor, as RJ giggled and egged his pal on.

There was a crunching sound; Sam stared at the bitten off handle of the spoon in his hand, as Connor chewed noisily, and swallowed.

"You ate the spoon!" he shrieked accusingly, as both boys opened their mouths like baby birds waiting to be stuffed with worms, "You little asshole, you ate the fucking spoon!"

Connor looked bemused, burped, then resumed his begging. RJ banged on the table.

Sam fetched another – metal – spoon. "Reel your damned teeth back in," he instructed. Connor ignored him. He resumed shovelling, being wary of the werewolf pup's dentition. A werewolf pup's bite couldn't turn anybody, and an adult could only turn a victim at the full moon, but experience had shown that werewolf puppy teeth were every bit as needle-like as dog puppy teeth, and could be deployed just as enthusiastically and painfully during play.

"Why do you always end up wearing as much as you swallow?" he asked as he wiped at RJ's face. His nephew put a hand to his own soiled bib, then grinned, and tenderly patted Sam's face. "Oh, yuck!" Sam wiped at his own face. "Not cool! Hey!" Connor inspected his own bib carefully, plucked off a fallen glob, and flung it at Sam. "Not the hair! Oh, gross!" Noting Uncle Sammy's entertaining reaction, RJ giggled, and followed suit. "Hey! Stop it!"

RJ plunged a hand into his bowl, sucked thoughtfully at it, then waved it enthusiastically, splattering pasta and sauce over the table and Connor. Connor laughed like it was the funniest thing he'd seen since his last Level Five Enfecalation Event, and copied RJ. A splat hit Sam between the eyes.

"Knock it off!" he yelped, pulling both bowls out of grabbing distance then grabbing another wipe, "You filthy little fuckers!" He glared at them. RJ blew a raspberry. "Let's just finish lunch, huh? Here, open up, yum yum... Connor, let go of the damned spoon! Let go! Oh, I don't believe it, you've left teeth marks in it..."

He served up small pieces of banana for them to feed themselves (or, as they seemed to be determined to do, to give themselves natural fruit acid facials) while he quickly made himself a sandwich and bolted it. They sat looking expectantly at him when they'd finished.

"Well, I guess at least some of it went in your mouths," he mused philosophically, wiping faces and hands swapping over bibs, "So I guess you can have some..."

"PA!" shouted RJ, as Connor hooted excitedly.

"Okay," he opened two small jars of the coveted foodstuff and picked up two new spoons, "Now the rules of pudding are, we eat it, we don't wear it, and it's food, not finger paint, and I would prefer it if you_ RJ_!"

Like a striking snake, RJ grabbed for his jar, shoved a hand into it, turned to Connor and patted him on the face, then sucked his fingers. As Sam reached to grab RJ's jar back, Connor grabbed his, upended it, and began to smear it across the table with a cry of delight.

"HEY!" Sam grabbed for the second jar; Connor ignored him, concentrating on scooping up the gooey goodness and shoving it – largely – into his mouth. RJ joined him, and they contentedly ate off the table.

"You two are gross," Sam complained, as they finished spreading the mess around, then looked meaningfully at the other jar he still held. "Okay, but you are going to eat this one properly, you understand me? Gah! Don't throw it! Right, now, let's try to be civilised about this. That means cutlery, and... CONNOR LET GO OF THE FRIGGING SPOON!"

Grinning happily, Connor bounced in his chair, let out a little yip, and... shapeshifted.

"CONNOR!" shrieked Sam, as the werewolf pup wriggled out of his booster chair and fell to the floor, where he shook himself, squirmed out of his clothing, and then ran around in circles in excitement, leaving chocolate pudding pawprints.

RJ laughed and hooted in amusement. "Con! Con!" he yelled. "Woof! Woof!"

"You come back here!" Sam made a grab for the escapee. Unfortunately, as puppies learn to walk at a much earlier age than humans, so baby werewolves found their feet earlier in wolf form than in human form. Connor shot under the table with surprising coordination, then sat down and began to lick pudding from his paws.

With a few choice cusswords, Sam grabbed him by the scruff, carried him into the living room, and deposited him in the playpen. "However you're getting over that, you won't be able to do it now," he growled, as Connor grinned up at him, tongue lolling. Then, with Sam watching, he put his head down, wiggled his nose, and went _under_ the playpen.

"What the...?" Sam blinked in disbelief as Connor galumphed back to the kitchen, and resumed licking pudding from the floor. With a resigned sigh, Sam picked him up again, and put him on the table.

"There," he said glumly, "You might as well finish that up while I feed RJ what's left in the jar."

* * *

The go-under-the-playpen thing? It's what I did at that age. It drove my mother nuts trying to work out how I kept escaping.

So, will the others come back and rescue Sam that night, or do they get stuck on the way back – maybe the Hunt takes longer than they thought, and maybe a bridge gets washed out or something – and he has to watch them for a whole 24 hours? (And maybe they ended up stuck in the middle of Bumfuck, North Dakota, and the only accommodation available was one room, and they all had to bunk down together, with four dogs, and a most trying evening for everyone ensued, and after they tossed for who got the queen bed, Dean and Ronnie ended up sharing it, and Kelly snored, and Bobby farted, and Dean talked dirty in his sleep, and Ronnie had really cold feet and growled in her sleep...) Whaddyareckon?


	12. Baby Baby Baby - Part The Last

_Lampito rushes in, and slams door behind her_

Shhhh! I'm hiding from Real Life! I'm hoping I'll be able to evade it for a little while, at least for long enough for a plot bunny to whisper audibly. Poor Stewie, who's dictating 'I Love To Go A-Wandering' is being drowned out entirely at the moment – I think he was badly frightened by a terrifying data file (I know it scared the hell out of me) and is currently cowering behind my desk Dalek (his name is Tarquin, he's blue, and he shouts 'EXTERMINATE!' at anybody who comes into my office), but he's a determined little bunny, so I'm sure he'll be back.

Ah yes, swearing, dog chews and letting them eat off the table – Sam's just in touch with kid-wrangling in the real world (well, the Jimiverse real world, anyway) in a way that the authors of those lovely books on the subject (usually photographed wearing white, in a pristine house, holding a baby so obligingly asleep it's obviously been dosed with enough Phenergen to knock over a Mastiff) clearly are not. I'm informed that my own mother let me eat the dog's Goodo kibble, if it kept me quiet, and if I decided to settle for my nap on the floor with the dog before she could put me in my cot, she'd just leave me there. My brother was permitted to eat an entrée of a couple of worms before lunch, if that's what he really wanted, and when the weather was hot, letting us crawl around nekkid, then hosing us off occasionally, was practical, and we seemed to enjoy it. It doesn't seem to have done me any harm (apart from a lingering fondness for red meat and napping curled up with the dogs). And when bibs just didn't cut it at feeding time, a poncho made from an old bath towel was very effective (she always said that if disposable plastic shopping bags had been available then, that would've been even better). I am also told by workmates that such practical parenting practices are alive and well Down Here; as one person whose lab works with synthesising particularly unpleasant chemicals said, 'If the worst thing I have to deal with all Wednesday is that my toddler suddenly decides that for breakfast he wants to eat peanut butter and broccoli, that's a good day'. Or, another gem of her wisdom, 'Nobody deserves to go to jail for letting a six-month-old wear odd socks, suck on a tennis ball that's had all the fuzz chewed off by the dog, or go to sleep listening to Henry Rollins. Seriously, they don't know what he's talking about, and if the first word ends up being 'fuck', that'll be funny as hell anyway'.

* * *

**Baby Baby Baby**

_**Part the Last**_

After lunch, he cleaned them up, wrestled RJ into clean clothes, and tried to get Connor to understand that he would like him to shift back to human _now,_ please. Connor was having none of it.

"Keep it down, guys," Sam pleaded, "Please don't wake Frankie up..."

There was a knock at the door. Sam jerked upright, then grabbed a boy in each arm and went to check on the caller.

He let out a stifled moan of horror when he saw the Widow Witherspoon, Bobby's nosiest neighbour, standing on the porch with a dish and a beaming smile.

"Hello, Mr Winchester!" she chirped, "Was that Miss Remington's truck I saw earlier? And Mrs Jaeger's? Are the children with you?"

"Uh, yeah," conceded Sam, glad that Ronnie wasn't there to hear herself described as 'Mrs' anybody. "I'm kind of holding the fort today."

"Hello young Robert!" she trilled at RJ, who immediately went into charm-the-visitor mode: he beamed at her, and gave her a wave. "Hi!" he announced cheerfully.

"Is your friend Connor with you today?" she asked him indulgently.

"He's uh, a bit off-colour today," Sam lied with a desperate smile, "He's not feeling completely human. Just a passing thing."

"Oh, poor little mite," she crooned. "But, who is this?" she indicated the wolf pup who was snuggled into Sam's other arm, "Did your Daddy get you a puppy, RJ?"

"Uh, kind of," Sam nodded frantically, as Connor wiggled and yipped a greeting, "Bobby's, um, just baby-sitting, or puppy-sitting, ha ha, the little guy for someone he knows, and they've turned out to be good friends, so, they're kind of keeping each other company."

"What's your puppy-friend's name, Robert?" Mrs Witherspoon enquired.

"Con!" chirped RJ engagingly. "Con! Con! Conna!"

"Conan!" Sam yelped, "His name is Conan! Because he'll get so big, ha ha!"

"I don't recognise the breed," she frowned, "What is he?"

"Woof! Woof!" contributed RJ, pointing at Connor.

"He's a, uh, a Northern Germanic Wolfhound," Sam told her seriously. "A rare breed, but the males can get very big. You should see the size of his, um, sire."

"Oh, well, he's just adorable!" Mrs Witherspoon trilled, "Aren't you lucky to have them all to yourself for the day!"

"Oh, yeah," Sam agreed wanly, "Lucky, that's me."

"So, I brought you some of my chocolate cookies," she put the dish down on the side table inside the door, "Because I just know how much both the Roberts of the house love them!"

"Oh, that's very kind of you, Mrs Witherspoon," Sam made himself smile, as Connor wiggled again, and put his tongue into Sam's ear. "Yew! Connor – Conan – stop that! Naughty boy! Er, dog!"

"You just give me a call if they get to be too much of a handful," she told him firmly, "I had a lot of practice with my brood! Oh, I could tell you horror stories, when they were all under the age of seven, and Mr Witherspoon, God rest him, well, frankly, he'd run and hide in the garage, what with men not being really expected to do much in the way of parenting in those days..."

As she rambled on, Sam noticed with alarm that Connor was yawning, and his canines retracted a little, a sign that he was preparing to shift back to human. "Oh, er, yeah," he nodded again, "I just love doing the whole parenting thing. Wouldn't miss it for the world. Oh no, can you smell that, I think it's RJ here, you need changing young man? Was that Frankie waking up? Goodness, is that the time, I must get these two down for their nap, thank you so much for the cookies, they look delicious, of course I'll call you if I needanyhelpthankyougoodbyeMrsWitherspoon!"

He stepped back and slammed the door with one foot as, with a small shrug, Connor shifted back to human.

"Whoa," Sam breathed, "Don't do that to me again, okay?" He peeked carefully through the glass: Mrs Witherspoon eventually left, but he knew he hadn't got rid of her. One of her favourite when any of the kids were at Singer Salvage was to visit with baked treats – if she didn't get what she considered satisfactory kid-cuddling access with that, she'd return a few hours later, ostensibly asking to get her plate back... "She'll probably be back," he warned the boys, "So, just try to, you know, pretend we're normal if she does, okay?"

RJ yawned, patted Sam's cheek reassuringly, and sharted loudly.

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

He put them together in RJ's travel crib in the living room, where they curled together like a couple of puppies. As an afterthought, he called old Janis, the last of Jimi Senior's puppies with Rumsfeld-the-Former, indoors to watch them. If nothing else, she'd raise the alarm if they woke up and started to try to tunnel, chew, or blast their way out.

By the time he'd cleaned up the kitchen, changed his own soiled clothes, realised he had enough for a load of laundry and put it in to wash, Frances was awake and babbling. He picked up his coffee – if she was going to want a drink, he was entitled to one too – and went to her.

"Hey, Miss Sleepy," he crooned to her, as she blinked up at him and blew another bubble. "Ew, you know, I could really do without that," he reproached her, wiping her face, "So, you wanna have a feed while the Gruesome Twosome are asleep?"

She babbled and waved her hands as he prepared her bottle, then headed back to the living room with her. Janis lay, her grizzled muzzle on her paws but her old eyes watchful, as the Gruesome Twosome mumbled and stretched in their sleep.

"You're not gonna be like that, are you?" he said to her, half pleading, "When you're older? You're gonna be a good girl, and not eat anything that isn't food, and come when you're called, and not get dirty, and be sensible in the bath... and always be perfectly behaved... and never talk back... and do your homework... and not get interested in boys until you're twenty-five... and not date until you're thirty..." he peered down into the little pink face, contentedly drinking, and sighed. "Who am I kidding," he grumbled, "You're a Winchester. Just... promise me, that when you want to know about the whole boys-and-girls thing, you'll go talk to your mom, or to me. Don't go talking to Uncle Dean about it, okay? If we're talkin' That Sort Of Thing, he's not a suitable role model for a young lady. He's not really a suitable role model for a young man, either. I'm not sure he's a suitable role model for anybody. Except maybe a porn actor. Or an incubus." He paused. "Although, if you wanna learn about make-up and stuff – when you're a suitable age, young lady – he could teach you all about that. Seriously. He spent some time in Auntie Ronnie's body, once, and he went and go himself a makeover. He's got instructional vids on YouTube. But you are never, never, never allowed to ask him about the chicken fillets and the push-up bra, okay?"

Frankie finished her bottle, and drowsed against him. He burped her, sighed in resignation when her spit-up missed the cloth and got his shirt, then leaned back on the sofa, holding her carefully against his chest. Maybe the whole child-minding thing wasn't so bad, he thought, his eyes sliding shut...

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

They awoke, yawning and stretching and dribbling the way small children do. They exchanged greetings once more – _How was your nap, dude? Great! I think I peed enough to sink the Titanic; seriously, if I could walk, I'd slosh. Well, I'm pretty sure I shit myself, Level Two Event, I'd say. Outstanding work, my man!_ – and sat up, looking around. Uncle Sammy was dozing on the sofa with Frances snuggled against him.

They played a brief game of whack-a-cake (which is like pat-a-cake, only when two small boys do it by flailing their hands at each other and giggling), then looked around for amusement. The crib had a base that made a Great Escape impossible; going over the top was not possible. They whacked at the sides, making interrogative noises, then paused.

"Ja!" RJ pointed to the old half-Hellhound, who wagged the end of her tail, and nosed at them through the mesh, "Ja!"

"Janijanijani!" agreed Connor, bouncing up and down in excitement. He made some whuffing vocalisations that weren't exactly human.

Old Janis might have been a yard dog all her life, but she was still a Hunter's dog, and half Blood of the Pit at that. She might rarely have needed to use her breeding's unusual talents, but she had them nonetheless, and was prepared to use them when she had the pups of her extended Pack in her charge. And she understood canine clearly enough, even from a pup.

Obligingly, she disregarded the laws of physics as they pertain to physical matter, put her greyed head through the side of the crib as though it wasn't there, then she took Connor gently by the scruff of his shirt, and pulled...

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

Sam wasn't asleep; he was just resting his eyes, doing the whole Just-Be-There-With-Your-Kid thing, and it couldn't have been for more than ten minutes, and the boys were safe in the crib, and he totally was not asleep anyway.

Nonetheless, when he heard the bang, he was headed for the kitchen, daughter in one hand and gun in the other, before his eyes were fully open.

"RJCONNORWHATTHEOHMYGOD…"

The gymnastics he performed as his feet slipped on something and went out from under him were truly remarkable: in an action that was a combination of an aikido break fall, a building demolished by controlled implosion and Wile E. Coyote running off a cliff but taking several seconds to realise that there was no longer solid ground under him, Sam hit terra firma (or in fact kitchen floor very damned firma) with Frances in one outstretched hand, his gun looking for the threat in the other, and the rest of his body protesting loudly about being treated like a beanie toy.

His daughter gave him one of the gummy smiles she'd just started doing, and burbled a noise of enjoyment.

"Breeeeep!" went Sam, eyes wide in bewilderment.

They had probably got the larder door open by one of them pulling himself upright on it. Connor had gone for the low-hanging fruit. Or, in fact, the lowest-hanging container; he'd managed to extract a scatter of dog kibble from the hopper in the bottom of the cupboard, and was stuffing them into his face. RJ, on the other hand, was sucking vigorously at a plastic jar of peanut butter that must've cracked when it hit the floor. Their real achievement, though, was the bottle of chocolate syrup – the flip top had popped, possibly as a result of it leaning against the door then falling when they opened it, but by squeezing, hitting or sitting on it, they'd managed to execute an art installation that would've made Jackson Pollock hand in his smock and become a shoe salesman.

Sam cursed Dean's apparent addiction to the stuff, and insistence on buying the largest bottle available. He added one more curse to whichever marketing guru had decided to initiate the

'30% Extra Free!' upsized bottle, hoping that all their PowerPoint files would be eaten by the Blue Screen Of Death.

Janis sat watching them patiently, chocolate sauce all over her face and ears. Connor thoughtfully alternated between shoving kibbles into his own chocolate-smeared face, and feeding them to the old dog.

Both boys looked up at him as he burst into the kitchen and fell over, yelping in confusion. They gave him big sunny smiles, and paused in their illicit snacking to applaud him.

"Sa!" RJ greeted him, offering his peanut butter jar for inspection. Connor cheerfully offered him a handful of chocolate-coated kibble.

With a small bewildered squeaking noise, Sam bent down to take the PB from RJ.

"What the hell are you doing?" he demanded when he finally found his voice. "How the hell did you get out?" His eyes narrowed as he glared at Janis. "Did you get them out?" he demanded. "Did you get these little assholes out of the crib? Then sit here and watch them? They're doing fingerpainting on the floor, and on you, with chocolate syrup, and they're covered in the stuff, and they're _eating_ it, off the _floor_, and with dog kibble, and you're just sitting here _watching_ them? And you're _okay_ with that?"

Janis whuffed to him, then leaned in and gently began to wash Connor's face.

"What is wrong with this picture?" Sam asked an uncaring universe, "Apart from the fact that I'm talking to the frigging dog like she's a negligent sitter?"

"Pibi!" RJ commanded, holding out his hand, his meaning clear_. Look, I'm happy to share, but if you're not going to eat any of that delicious gloopy brown stuff, then don't hog it, give it back._

Sam scrubbed a hand over his face. "Okay," he said to himself, jiggling Frances, who was starting to babble, "Okay, what we have to do here is prioritise. I guess first order of business is to stop this spreading any further. Which will mean bath time for everybody. Including you," he reached down to grab Janis by the collar; at the use of the b-word, she had scrambled to her feet as fast as her aged body would let her, and was clearly intending to make an escape. "Nuh-uh, madam, you can help. So, we'll get everybody upstairs, and…" he paused, and sniffed again, then sighed. "Okay, which one of you is that?"

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

It was a logistical undertaking that made the building of the Hoover Dam look like the construction of a crooked sandcastle, Sam mused. It would also have been a lot easier if he'd had a well-trained octopus to assist him.

As it was, he accomplished the transfer of everybody, human or canine or somewhere in between, by making a plaid shirt sling for Frances, putting Janis on a leash, grabbing a kid under each arm, and wearing Frankie's travel capsule on his head.

And that was the easy bit.

"The Captain's daughter Charlotte, was born and bred a harlot," he sang desperately to keep Frances from gringing. It was crowded in the bath: he sat in his shorts, with the boys between his knees, and Janis at the other end of the tub, washing chocolate sauce and peanut butter off all of them. "Her thighs at night were lily white and by the morning, scarlet, RJ don't eat the washcloth!" His nephew, with a mouthful of apparently delicious flannel, peered up at him, while Connor splashed and babbled, "Frigging in the rigging, frigging in the rigging, frigging in the rigging, there was fuck all else to do Connor that stuff isn't edible, so just… oh, well, I guess it won't hurt you to be clean inside as well as out… sorry, Frankie, the cabin boy was Kipper, the filthy little nipper, he filled his ass with broken glass and circumcised the skipper, Janis don't you dareaaAAAARGH!"

The aged dog stood, wagged her tail, then shook vigorously, spraying water everywhere.

RJ and Connor hooted their amusement, and redoubled their wave-making efforts. Sam consoled himself with the thought that the bathroom floor was sensibly waterproofed and had non-slip tiles.

He lost track of time – he just kept singing, and grabbing at the three other occupants and washing them, until one wriggled away and he grabbed another, repeating the process (and the song) until they were all more or less clean.

"Thank fuck for that," he muttered, tucking a towel around his waist and fishing the others out of the tub, whilst cursing the discomfort of wet shorts, "Okay, let's get you two into diapers, and clean clothes… HEY!"

The moment she realised she was allowed out of the bath, old Janis headed straight for the door. Apparently sensing his own escape opportunity, Connor let out a yip, shrugged, shapeshifted, and grabbed at her tail with his little muzzle.

The old half-Hellhound didn't even slow down; she hit the bathroom door at a stiff but brisk trot and disappeared through it, taking Connor with her.

"CONNOR!" shrieked Sam, grabbing RJ in one hand and Frankie's capsule in the other. JR squealed in glee as he limped down the stairs as quickly as his sore ankle would let him. "Janis! You get your scheming old ass back here!"

Janis was a dog on a mission; whether the idea of any sort of cleansing was somehow anathema to the Hellhound blood she'd inherited from Jimi Senior, or she had just inherited a perfectly ordinary doggy horror of bathing from her dam Rumsfeld was not clear.

What was clear that something deep down inside her core being was urging her to find something delightfully and fragrantly disgusting to roll in to recover from the hideous experience of The Dreaded Bath.

The fact that Connor, in his wolf-pup form, was tagging along for the ride didn't faze her in the least.

"CONNOR!" Sam yelped again, rounding the bottom of the stairs just in time to see Jimi Sr.'s last pup heading for the door, "YOU GET YOUR SHAPESHIFTED ASS BACK HERE RIGHT NOW YOUNG MAN!"

The old dog disappeared through solid wood – Connor, still hanging on to her tail, let out a happy if somewhat muffled yip as he went with her.

Muttering curses and imprecations and threats to use silver ammo, he followed, Frances babbling and waving her arms and RJ giggling in his other arm. "Janis! Connor! Where the hell are you?" He looked around wildly, and his eyes fell on two sets of wet paw prints headed around the corner, and into the yard.

Maybe it won't be so bad, he mused to himself, as he scanned the yard, when I tell Ronnie that I've lost her kid, she'll be so enraged that she'll shift, and decapitate me with a single swipe, I won't feel a thing, I guess, it's a shame I won't get to see my daughter grow up, though…

A tendril of truly vile smell wafted to his nose.

"Oh, no," he groaned, peering around a car body, "No, no, no, please don't tell me…"

It was dank. It was squishy. It was rotting. It has quite possibly been a skunk while it was alive. But the important thing, from a canine point of view, was that it was putrid, punky, and pungent.

Janis and Connor were both rolling in it, expressions of bliss on their faces.

"Oh. My. God." spluttered Sam. Frances screwed up her face, possibly at the smell, while RJ laughed out loud. "You filthy, filthy creatures... no no no nononono!" Having anointed himself with Parfum de Putride, Connor yipped again, and bounded towards Sam, colliding with his legs before he reverted to human form, pulled himself upright on Sam, dislodging his towel, and held out his arms.

"Up!" he grinned cheerfully.

"How?" demanded Sam in desperation, "I've run out of arms, Connor!"

"Meh," said Connor fatalistically, dropping back to all fours and starting to crawl back towards the house.

"Dow! Dow!" demanded RJ, wriggling fiercely, whacking at Sam's arm and chest, and making it clear he wanted to follow his friend, "Dow, dow, dowdowdow DOWDOWDOWDOWDOW!"

"Oh, for fuck's sake," moaned Sam to the uncaring Fates with an edge of hysteria in his voice, putting RJ down before the kid escaped and fell, "I'm standing in my shorts, my wet shorts, with my kid yelling, with smears of dead fuck-knows-what up my legs, with two kids I'm supposed to be watching crawling around bareassed in the dirt! How can it get better than this, huh? How can it get better than this!?"

"Yoo hoo!" came a voice from behind him, "Yoo hoo! Is that you, Mr Winchester? Did I just see Robert and Connor crawling past... oh!" Mrs Withererspoon rounded a rusting junker, and stopped, staring at him. "Oh, dear," she sniffed, her face wrinkling in distaste, "Whatever is that awful smell?"

"Sorry!" he trilled at her, "Bobby made chilli for dinner last night, and I had seconds, silly of me, Dean complains it turns me into a nerve gas factory – he claims that if the military ever find out about me, they'll want to drop me on the Taliban…"

"Er, is everything all right, Mr Winchester?" she asked, eyeing him dubiously.

"Couldn't be better!" squeaked Sam, snatching up his towel, and following the boys back towards the house, "We were just, we were just... sunbathing!"

"Sunbathing?" she didn't look completely convinced.

"Oh yeah, totally!" he chirped, "It's such a nice day, isn't it a nice day? What a nice day!"

"I'm not sure it's necessarily a good thing for them to be crawling around out here undressed, Mr Winchester," she observed, a note of reproach in her voice.

"Oh, it's very important!" Sam assured her. "Because of... Vitamin D! Yeah! They gotta get sunlight to make Vitamin D! They gotta get enough Vitamin D! Do you know what Dean or Kelly or Ronnie, er, Veronica would do to me if they thought I was giving their kids Vitamin D deficiency?"

"A vitamin deficiency?" Mrs Witherspoon looked worried.

"Oh, yeah," Sam's face became grim, "Vitamin D production via exposure to sunlight is absolutely essential for bone health, especially in children! Deficiency at this age could cause osteomalacia!" He dropped his voice to an awed hush. "Rickets!"

"Rickets!" she gasped, being of an age to remember when the disease had affected her childhood peers.

"Totally," he nodded, "It's a terrible deficiency, with all sorts of awful consequeces. Bone abnormalities are just the start of it. Immune deficiencies, cardiovascular problems, and osteoporosis – a serious problem for our seniors," he added ominously.

"Oh, dear," Mrs Witherspoon quavered.

"But some sunshine can do a body a power of good, as Bobby would say," Sam went on, "And we've had our sunshine now, so we'd better go back inside…" he began to back away, towards the house, praying that the boys were crawling up the stairs and not under them, as RJ was fond of doing if he was left unattended for two seconds.

"Er, if you need some help," the Widow Witherspoon began.

"It's okay," Sam gave her a desperately cheerful grin, "I got it under control! Thank you for your concern! You can come and get your plate later. Tomorrow, perhaps, after Bobby's had a chance to admire the pattern. How do you think they get those kittens to look so adorably cross-eyed? Bye!"

He turned, and… fled is not too strong a word.

The random motion of creation threw him a bone; RJ was at the top of the stairs, and making encouraging noises to Connor, who was sniffing at a yellow weed flower_. If he cocks his damned leg on that_, thought Sam, _I just hope that Mrs Witherspoon isn't watching…_

Barely pausing, he swirled his towel around Connor to shield himself from the worst of the dead yuck, picked the kid up, took the stairs two at a time, and had them back inside with the door shut before Mrs Witherspoon could offer to come and bake him a nice batch of the charcoal biscuits she used to make for Mr Witherspoon when he had one of his stomach upsets.

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

There was another bathtime adventure, with more indoor tidal waves, more splashing, and more obscene song to keep Frances occupied. He looked at the pile of towels and clothes, and decided that another load of laundry was probably in order. Come to think of it, maybe he could just have put the boys in there. It'd be okay, maybe, if he put it on a hand-wash cycle and made sure their heads were above the water…

"Haba!" RJ demanded as Sam wrestled him back into diaper and clothes. "Haba! HAAABAAA!"

"You know what?" Sam gave him a brittle smile as he tackled Connor, "I think that's a great idea! You guys can sit and watch some honey badgers while I clean up, okay? But you gotta stay put in the pen, you can't go crawlin' under it. This is the deal." They looked up at him with big earnest eyes. "Okay, then, we'll… oh, Frankie, what's wrong?" His daughter was grizzling in the way that indicated she was wet, or tired, or most likely both. "Yeah, yeah," he sighed, "You can go nap again. Just let me get these two sorted out…"

Working as quickly as he could, he grabbed for the laptop, and let out a small gasp of surprise: Dean had actually done something useful, and put together a video playlist that sounded like just what he needed to keep the occupied.

"Hey, look at this!" he told them enthusiastically, "Your Daddy has made a playlist for you! Oh, wow, and get this, it's about a honey badger called Stanley!"

"Sta!" RJ enthused.

"Right then," Sam put both the boys in the playpen, wedged it carefully with the sofa to prevent any Great Escape tributes, and cued the playlist. There would probably be some child development expert who would throw up her hands in horror at the idea of sitting them in front of the laptop watching cartoons to keep them occupied and quiet, but he really didn't give a rat's ass. In fact, he gave them another dog chew each, just to make sure. "Enjoy, guys!" he told them, taking Frankie and heading for the study.

He took a few deep breaths, and tried to calm himself before changing his daughter's diaper, and settling her for another nap. She grizzled some more, demanding yet one more rendition of The Good Ship Venus before she'd drop off.

Sam poked his head briefly into the living room: both boys were watching the screen, riveted, smiling and babbling and clapping. The child development experts could go fuck 'emselves, he mused, satisfied.

He headed upstairs and dealt with the bathroom mess, then headed back down to the laundry, checking in on the way through – they hadn't moved, watching with rapt attention, then suddenly hooting with amusement – so he carried on, resolving to ask Dean to prepare some more emergency playlists. Apparently, his big brother had a knack for identifying things that would keep small children occupied. It probably stemmed from his having watched so many cartoons from such an early age. Or the fact that a part of Dean's brain would be forever five years old.

They were still sitting, quiet and engaged, when he re-emerged, so he took the opportunity to grab himself a coffee, and a snack. He looked at his watch; dinner time would be upon them soon, then after that, bed time. And after that, oh, after that, the other adults and Dean would come home, and he could hand them back…

"So, what are you guys watching?" he asked, approaching the playpen where his charges still sat, watching happily. "The Adventures of Stanley the Cartoon Honey Badger? Is this where Stanley got his name from, huh?"

"Sta!" RJ waved the precious toy, and gestured at the screen. A swell of classical music came from the speakers.

"Why don't we watch some Stanley cartoons together?" he suggested, putting them on the sofa and sitting with them. They seemed to like the idea, so he turned the laptop around to face them. "So, what's Stanley been up to?"

It didn't look that promising; there was just a plastic action toy, wearing a green balaclava, talking to the screen. Visually, it wasn't very interesting.

But the monologue it produced was something else.

Sam sat, stunned, listening to the plastic man spin a tale of homo indoor cats, white trash neighbours, killer dogs (one named Lucifer, who was five feet tall with a swastika shaved into each side of its body), and... a honey badger.. A Camel chain-smoking, jerky-chomping, dick-biting blood-crazed honey badger. Named Stanley.

"Sta!" chirped RJ as the animal was mentioned again.

Sam blinked in disbelief, listening to the description of Stanley's attack on the dogs, in which he tore one of their heads off, stuck it on the end of his dick, and began to rape Lucifer to death...

"JESUSHCHRIST!" he yelped, thumping at the keyboard. The full screen view shut. As the boys whined in disappointment, he made out the name of the channel – _Action Figure Therapy_ – and the title of the video.

_**Honey Badger Blood Orgy**_

With eyes bugging in horror, he scanned back through the list of episodes they'd been watching.

Some of them were about Stanley the homicidal honey badger.

_**Honey Badger Halloween Beatdown**_

_**Umbrella Holding, Stanley the Honey Badger and Gun Lobbyists**_

_**Honey Badger FTW**_

Others, not so obviously.

_**Stolen Wet Dream On Wheels**_

_**Jetpack, Muthafucka!**_

_**Strip Club Etiquette**_

_**How To Prepare For A Nine-Way**_

_**Shark Week Undersea Mermaid Sexcapade**_

The list went on. What they did have in common, he quickly ascertained, was plastic action figures spouting pure obscenity of the type that Dean clearly found hilarious, but was utterly unsuitable for small children.

"Sta!" RJ demanded, pointing to the screen and whacking at Sam with his own Stanley, "Sta! Sta! Staaaaa!"

"Stani Stani Stani!" added Connor, thumping Sam in the ribs.

"Oh God," wailed Sam, "You guys have been sitting here for the last hour and some listening to... this! It's gotta be causing brain damage! I mean, look at Dean!" He quickly found them some actual honey badger footage to watch. They glowered at him. He ignored them. "God, I hope I caught it in time," he made a mental note to add Compilation Of Entirely Unsuitable Playlists Under Misleading Titles to the list of things to harangue Dean about later. "I guess at least you're too young to pick up the words. Crap, can you imagine what Bobby would have to say about you comin' out with phrases like 'Moustache with titties', or 'I will buttfuck your soul'..."

"Musta titi!" piped Connor. "Titi! Titi!"

"Bafa! Bafa! Bafabafabafa!" enthused RJ.

Sam let out a small squeak, and wished the sofa would swallow him.

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

Dinner was an equally messy affair, although he was ready for them this time: he made them plastic grocery bag ponchos, and wrapped himself in a trash can liner. It wasn't elegant, but it meant that at least he only had to clean the kitchen, and not them. He left it in place for giving Frances her feed, which not only kept the spit-up off his shirt, it made things marginally less revolting when she produced what he decided was a Level Two Point Five Enfecalation Event.

He was ready for Connor, too. The moment the little bastard shapeshifted, Sam whipped out Lars' old puppy collar, and dropped it over the werewolf pup's head. Connor didn't like that; he squealed and yelped as though he was having his throat cut. Sam was having none of it.

"Suck it up, Fido," he growled, thoroughly exhausted by the day's events and in no mood to chase a pup around the house. "You gonna act like a dog, I'm gonna treat you like one!"

With a resentful glare, Connor growled, and shifted back to human. Sam allowed himself a small, vicious thrill of triumph.

All the kids seemed to get a second wind after dinner. A sudden intense Spring storm came up, so he vetoed any outdoor activity, but the boys were placated by his oversight of a game of Zombie Dinosaur Apocalypse Night Of The Cosmic Honey Badger (starring Stanley) whilst playing candy-teeth peekaboo with Frances. He took the opportunity to give Frances a quick bath in the kitchen sink while the Stanleysaurus rampaged through some non-specific Japanese nuclear-powered town represented by a pile of blocks, and Oinker Stoinker. As the rain came down and the light faded, he found his eyes continually drawn to the clock, and mental calculations running through his head. Four hours there (probably less, driving like Hunters on the way to a job), clean up the bloodsuckers, four hours back, the others would return after the kids' bedtime, but before the disruptions of night feeds, diaper changes and waking-up-and-yelling-just-to-fuck-with-Mommy-and- Daddy's-sleep started. In fact, the boys were starting to yawn; he could bunk them all down in the living room until the vampire dispatchers returned, then he could have some quiet time, and look forward to hitting his own bed, maybe with a good book – hell, maybe even with a good woman, he smiled to himself.

They began the evening wind-down ritual with a reading from RJ's Favourite Book Of The Moment, a tome entitled 'B Is For Beer', which Dean also enjoyed immensely.

"... Gracie tiptoed into the den. Her daddy was watching football on their new flat plasma screen, and if the University of Washington was losing again, he'd be in a grumpy mood. Uh-oh. She heard a naughty word..."

Gracie had just cadged her first ever taste of beer from Uncle Moe when his phone suddenly buzzed, and he saw that it was his brother.

"Dean!" he answered with a wash of relief flooding over him, "How'd it go? You okay?"

"Yeah, Sammy," Dean sounded tired, "Hell of a fight – we've just about emptied out the First Aid kits. We're broken, beat and scarred, but we're all still alive. Can't say the same for the vamps, though, they're all dead. Well, deader."

"Thank fuck for that," sighed Sam.

"So, how was your day with the kids, honey?" He could hear Dean grinning down the phone.

"Oh, you know," Sam told him airily, "We played some games, changed some diapers, read some books, watched some honey badgers. Incidentally, if you ever put together a playlist of obscenity again and leave it for me to find, I will finish what those vampires started..."

"Who, me?" Dean asked innocently. "Come on, you need to take some dating tips from Jungle. He's got his moustache, you got your hair, it's practically the same thing..."

"Jungle? Is he the moustache-with-titties guy?" asked Sam sourly. RJ went "Titi titi!" in the background. "Damn it, Dean, as if he won't be bad enough already, just being your kid. Oh yeah, Mrs Witherspoon brought some of her cookies over," he added slyly. "If you promise not to do it again, I may not hide them from you."

"Bitch," barked Dean. "Leave me some cookies, or else!"

"Well, that depends on how soon you get back," Sam grinned to himself. "How far out are you?"

"Ninety minutes, probably less," Dean said.

"Great!" beamed Sam. "So, I'll see you before..."

"You won't see us until tomorrow," Dean informed him. "We're stuck in Bumfuck North Dakota until they fix the bridge. Can you believe it? We're stuck because a bridge is out!"

"Can't you get around it?" Sam yelped more desperately than he'd intended.

"It's a hell of a detour," Dean explained, "And the smaller bridges are probably all flooding anyway. It's blowing a frigging inland hurricane here – there's trees and shit comin' down on the roads. It's best if we just stay put for now. That is," he stifled a snigger, "If you think you can cope on your own until tomorrow..."

"Hey, I can cope, you jerk!" Sam snapped back, "I have got everything here under control, ticking over on idle and okey-dokey."

"Well, we'll see you tomorrow," Dean was grinning audibly again. "Sleep well."

"Yeah, yeah, you too," muttered Sam, putting away his cell and sighing deeply. "Come on, guys," he said with resignation, "Let's get ready for bed..."

He settled them all in the living room, then opened up the sofa bed for himself. Of course, he didn't expect he'd be doing a whole lot of sleeping, but he could always hope...

There was the subtle displacement of air that signified the arrival of a part-Hellhound coming through a solid surface. Janis made her way to the living room, and stiffly settled herself on the floor, gazing up at him with reassurance in her cloudy old eyes. he couldn't help but smile; with Janis inside, and Rumsfeld and Patch perpetually on guard outside, it would be safe for him to try to get some sleep. (She'd still be there in the morning, relaxed but watchful, when the others returned to find an exhausted Sam snoring gently, with the three kids clustered around him, all angelically asleep.)

He prepared to turn in himself an hour later, figuring that he might as well try to sleep while they did. He looked down at the sleeping boys, and then at his own daughter, his own tiny, perfect, adorable daughter. She grasped at his finger in her sleep, then yawned and settled, a picture of irresistible infant cuteness. And he decided that Tim Minchin's 'Lullaby' had one thing completely right:

_One thing they don't mention in the parenting book;  
Your love for them grows the closer to death they look..._

He checked that he had bottles prepared, diapers close to hand, spit-up cloths and wipes at the ready, then he turned out the light, and went to bed.

* * *

If you've never seen Tim Minchin sing his song 'Lullaby' about the reality of trying to get a baby to go to sleep, do go look it up on YouChoob. Sfunny. Oh, and Action Figure Therapy. Poor Ranger. Hilarious, but utterly NSFW. Honey badgers do indeed FTW.

So, I suppose now The Denizens might want the story of how our intrepid vampire killers spent the night in Bumfuck, North Dakota, sharing a single room. We'll have to see if a little bunny pops up to dictate that story. I'd like to listen to poor Stewie some more, too, but that will depend on how long I can hide from Real Life. Nowhere is safe. I can only hope that... AAAAAAARRRRGGGGGH!

_Door opens; a three tab spreadsheet, a Boltzmann curve fit, a lab book and a half-finished manuscript storm in, grab Lampito and drag her away. She wails pitifully._


	13. And The Little One Said 'Roll Over' I

So, while Sam is holding the fort against mess, dirty diapers, dead skunk and Mrs Witherspoon back at Casa Singer, what are our intrepid Hunters getting up to? Let's find out, in our next tale, another one that has unexpectedly turned out to be a two-parter. I think we might call this one...

* * *

**...And The Little One Said 'Roll Over'**

_**Part the First**_

"Balls," muttered Bobby, straightening up and wincing as he took in the pile of headless vampires in the street, "I'm too old for this."

_I am,_ his thoughts continued, _At my age, I should be bitchin' about people harrassin' me to plan responsibly for my financial future in my 'golden years', I should be writin' my retirement party speech, I should be lookin' forward to finally tellin' the boss exactly where he can shove the damned engraved watch, I should be workin' on a boat in one of the sheds, I should in fact be turnin' one o' the sheds into my Man Cave, I should be Dear Old Grandpa who minds the kids when Daddy has to go to work, I should be complainin' about The Trouble With Young People Today. I should even be wearin' my slippers to go get groceries if I feel like it. What I should not be doing, at my age, is goin' up against a frigging horde of bloodsuckers. If I ever meet God, I'm gonna have some choice words for Him._

"You want somebody to fetch you some warm milk and cookies?" Dean grinned lopsidedly through the blood on his face; Kelly snapped at him to hold still, and kept dabbing. "I'm sure somebody could do that."

"I'm still spry enough to sit you on your ass, boy," Bobby growled, admitting to himself that he had probably reached an age where, in all likelihood, that was just a bluff.

The situation had been worse that they'd anticipated. When they'd arrived at the small town of Tandivale, the shocked and disbelieving locals that Bobby's old acquaintance Seb had managed to round up and barricade in the General Store were starting to panic. An understandable reaction when you were seeing vampires, monsters that didn't exist, chowing down on your friends and family, then seeing those people become monsters themselves, monsters that weren't repelled by crosses or holy water like the stories said. (To his credit, once Father Murphy had recovered from that discovery, he'd picked up an axe and taken to them the way Seb had initially tried to explain was the only way to kill them.)

The vampires had done their homework, and they outnumbered the Hunters and the few locals who were able to help, but they were cocky, which made them stupid, and the ones just turned were crazed for blood, which made them completely careless. It was clearly not going to be possible to run one of the usual lines of bullshit, such as a particularly virulent form of meningitis turning people into frenzied killers, not after the townspeople had seen their kith and kin with bloodied fangs, and heard their smiling threats to bleed the remaining humans dry, so they'd just thrown discretion to the wind, and gone in with long blades swinging.

It had still been a near thing; since supernatural cover was well and truly broken, Ronnie, cornered by three vampires and bleeding from a gash in one leg, had roared, and shapeshifted; claws like sharpened garden forks were much more effective for dismemberment, she'd always said. After the carnage, she lay, panting, with the local veterinarian, an elderly man, tending her wounds.

"How far along are you?" he asked in a businesslike fashion.

"We figure she's about four months," Kelly answered for Ronnie, who nodded.

"Hmmmmm," the vet mused, fishing a stethoscope out of his bag. "Single heartbeat," he noted, "Very strong. Canines in whelp usually remain active right up to the birth; I'd say there's no harm done to Junior here." Ronnie let out a little huff of relief. "You've whelped before, haven't you? Do you know what your likely gestation period is?"

"Six or seven months," Kelly replied, "She's not sure of the exact dates for the last one."

"Amazing," the old man smiled. "Did you deliver in humanoid or canoid form?"

"She wolfed out in the back of my car," griped Dean, wincing as Kelly hit a particularly tender spot with the peroxide, "And it was _loud._"

"Well, you are a fascinating specimen, madam," the vet pronounced, "It is a matter of some regret to me that I am unable to document your existence and submit to a peer-reviewed journal, lest the men in white coats decide I'm finally too old to be out in public alone, let alone practise, and I should be locked away." Ronnie whuffed in amusement at that.

"You're, er, kind of," Kelly began, "Kind of, you know, unfazed by encountering a werewolf, Doc."

"I am a man of science, young lady," he sniffed. "If I can see it, and touch it, or it's trying to bite my neck and drink my blood, it exists."

"If it bleeds, we can kill it," supplied Dean helpfully.

"Mammalian anatomy and physiology have some remarkable consistencies across species," the vet explained. "I also spent some time volunteering at a wolf sanctuary, a very long time ago, not long after I graduated. In addition, I once gelded an elderly Shetland pony, in order to remove a testicular tumour, using only local anaesthetic because of the animal's age. When you've gone toe-to-toe – or, more accurately, head-to-ass – with a carnivorous Shetland that wants to kill you," he stared at her sternly, "Meeting your first vampire or werewolf is not that much of a shock."

"Just remember, not all of 'em are this civil," Bobby addressed the milling survivors, many of whom were still in shock. "Ronnie here is an exception. She can control it, and use it. Mostly, they can't. You ever see one, you ever even think you see one, you run like hell, get indoors somewhere. Don't bother tryin' to shoot, less'n you're loaded with silver ammo."

"Silver really works against werewolves?" asked one woman timidly.

"Uh-huh," Bobby nodded, "But the best thing you can do, is get the hell out of the way. These things are faster and stronger than you'd believe."

"She flips small cars when she gets annoyed," Dean added helpfully. Ronnie curled her lip, and flipped him the big vee.

"Extraordinary," observed the vet, "You have fine motor control of your... forepaws? Can you manipulate an object?"

"You are incorrigible, David Barton," opined Father Murphy, carefully turning over one of the vampires, making the sign of the cross, and beginning to administer the last rights. "A couple of hundred years ago, you'd have been accused of consorting with monsters, and charged with witchcraft."

"And you'd have been accused of blatant popery, and run out of town on a rail," the vet replied equably.

"They don't sparkle," a teenager said in a small voice as she clung to her father, "They don't sparkle, and they have big teeth, and they're nasty..."

"That they are," Bobby confirmed gently. "An' I'm sorry you good folks had to find out about this sort o' thing, like this. Acquirin' wisdom is useful, but it aint always pleasant."

"Amen to that," noted Father Murphy.

"My suggestion is that you keep this night to yourselves," Bobby went on, "Because nobody but other Hunters, or serious crackpots, will believe you."

Bobby and Seb spent some time in conversation with the priest and the local sheriff, concocting a cover story that would account for the deaths of so many locals in one night. Ronnie shifted back to human, then did human-wolf-human just once more at the vet's request.

"Astonishing, just astonishing," he mused. "Should you have any concerns about your pregnancy that you would prefer not to discuss with a human doctor, feel free to contact me or drop in any time for a consultation."

"Thanks, Doc," she smiled in amusement, taking Dean's plaid shirt.

"We'll take care of the dead," the grim-faced sheriff told them, as he shook their hands, "I don't know how much Hunters usually charge for their services..."

"We don't," Bobby replied firmly.

"Although pie is always welcomed," Dean piped up hopefully.

"The least we can do is put you up for the night," offered the proprietor of a guest house, "And offer you a decent feed."

"As welcome as that would be," Bobby smiled, "We really have to get goin'. When we got Seb's call, we left his brother watchin' these idjits' kids, two on the verge of walking, and a two-month old baby..."

A murmur of amused understanding ran through the survivors.

They finished patching each other up as best they could, while a few kids who'd been badly frightened by their ordeal had dog cuddle therapy with Lars, Lemmy, Lita and Morgan. At a whuff of instruction from Ronnie, Lita obligingly extruded her hellteeth again, to let Doc Barton examine them.

"Remarkable, just remarkable," he pronounced, "Would you mind if I took a buccal swab? Their genetics must be utterly astonishing..."

"Oh, don't get her started on the subject of Hellhound genetics," groaned Ronnie, jerking a thumb at Kelly, who was clearly about to say 'It's funny you should say that', "She'll go on and on for hours..."

"Well, it's a very interesting subject," Kelly defended herself, "If we could identify a test for Pit Blood heritage, we could identify the best animals to breed from. Now, take your dog Mako, he looked more like a razorback-shark cross, but he sired magnificent Hunting dogs..."

"Do your dogs have puppies, Mr Winchester?" asked the smallest boy, snuggled into the bulk of Lemmy's body, with Lars nuzzling at him the way an adult will try to soothe a scared puppy, "Could I have a Hellhound puppy here to keep the monsters away?"

"I'm sorry, Ethan," Dean hunkered down and smiled regretfully, "It doesn't work like that. These guys are still really puppies themselves – they won't be grown-up dogs for another year or so. And Hunter's dogs' puppies choose their own people, not the other way around."

"I want a Winchester puppy," Ethan said in a small voice, hugging Lars as Lemmy rumbled reassuringly. "Can Lars stay here?"

"No, tiger," Dean answered, "He's gotta go home with his family. 'Cause family's important, right?" Ethan looked up at his grandfather, and nodded. "And Lemmy would miss him, and Sam, he's Lars' Hunter, would miss him, and he'd miss them. So, these two gotta go home. But they'll always be out there, ganking monsters, to keep people safe, and after them, their puppies will grow up and go out and Hunt, too."

"Come on, Eth," the boy's grandfather picked him up, "Maybe if we ask nicely, Mom might let you have a dog. We'll see."

Ethan brightened at that. "I could teach it to watch out for monsters!" he said.

"I think you'll find that most dogs do that anyway," Dean grinned, "Bobby had a dog, Rumsfeld, who was just an ordinary dog, and you know what? He could smell out... demons!"

Ethan's eyes went wide. "Really?" he asked.

"Uh-huh," Dean nodded, "He never had any trainin' or anything, dogs can just do it, because they're good souls. Well, except for Chihuahuas, maybe, most o' them are just evil little... critters to start with..."

Wounds tended, cover story concocted and children reassured, the Hunters prepared to leave, with only a small delay when the woman who ran a local café insisted on pressing a box of small apple pies on Dean.

"Looks like the weather's closin' in," noted Bobby, sliding into shotgun as Dean started his Baby's engine. "It'll probably overtake us."

"It's not so bad when the job's done," Dean honked a final farewell and pulled onto the street, Kelly's truck following,. The first spatters of rain hit the windshield. "Driving through filthy weather, I can deal. Digging up some asshole for a salt-and-burn while I'm being drowned by freezing rain or blow away by a gale straight from the Arctic Circle, not so much." He cranked up the heater against the encroaching chill. "Now, let there be pie!"

Bobby fished a small pie out of the box on the seat between them and handed it over with a mutter of "Idjit," then settled into watching the scenery go by.

"Hey, what do you think they're talkin' about?" Dean's eyes flicked to the mirror; the headlights of Kelly's truck had dropped back in the wet conditions.

"Don't talk with yer mouth full," instructed Bobby automatically. "I asked Karen about it, once. What do you all talk about when you have one o' your craft classes, or your knitting circles, I asked. And she stared me in the eye, and replied: 'You'."

"Yeah?" Dean's eyebrows rose. "Like what?"

"It'll be Secret Women's Business," Bobby declared ominously. "They'll be swappin' war stories about their jobs, their kids, and the menfolk they know."

"Hey," Dean grinned, "You think they're swappin' stories about Sam and Andrew after dark? You know, swappin' tips about resuming relations after becoming a mom..."

"Don't ask," Bobby told him gruffly, "It's one o' them things that man ought not wot of."

"Come on, aint you just a little bit curious?" pressed Dean.

"Nope," replied Bobby promptly, "Just leave well enough alone, son."

"I wonder how Sam's doin," Dean grinned again. "I wonder if he has any hair left, or if he's pulled it all out by now. I put this video playlist on the laptop for him to find for the kids. RJ loves it, because it's got a honey badger named Stanley in it..."

"I'll be happy if my house is still standin' when we get back," Bobby muttered. "Maybe I shoulda called Jody, asked her to check on him."

"Nah, he'll be fine," Dean waved a hand airily, and reached for another pie. "Anyway, if he really gets into trouble, you know that Mrs Witherspoon would just love to drop whatever she's doin', and come over to help. She's said so often enough."

"Cas preserve us," shuddered Bobby, "She's a decent, charitable Christian woman, but sometimes she just scares the shit outta me."

"I think she's sweet on both the Roberts," Dean leered slyly.

"Given free rein, she'd have my arteries clogged more than they already are," complained Bobby, "And how we'd explain it if Connor has one of his little morphological moments, I wouldn't even want to try."

"Eczema?" suggested Dean brightly.

"Shut up and drive, idjit."

They made their way southward through fading light, increasingly heavy rain and a wind that buffeted even the Impala on open stretches of road. Bobby had just put away his cell, after a quick teleconference with Kelly and Ronnie in which they decided not to stop for chow in the small town they were passing through but to push onwards for Singer Salvage, when a waving light appeared in the darkness.

"What the...?" Dean slowed the Impala, and flicked the lights to high beam. A cruiser was parked beside a large yellow ROAD CLOSED sign, and a man in heavy weather gear was waving a light wand.

"Hey, Officer," began Dean, wincing against the wind and rain that buffeted him as he rolled down the window, "Problem with the road?"

"Bridge is out," the man shouted over the noise of the weather, "Flash flood, with the rain. Under four feet of water, and we think the centre might be gone."

"Damn!" Dean hit the wheel. "Oh, sorry, Baby..."

"Tell me about it," commiserated the deputy, "I've been turnin' folks back for the last hour."

"Huh, well that sucks. Any way round it?" Dean asked.

The deputy shook his head. "We were sending people west up until half an hour ago. A tree came down over the road. Big bastard. Blocked off both lanes, and took down power lines. It won't be safe to try to clear it until the power company makes the lines safe. Last we heard from the next town east, the ford and the bridge have both gone under. Sorry, folks," he sounded genuinely sheepish, "I guess your only option is to head back the way you came, or stop in town. If the bridge is still intact, once the water goes down, the engineers will have to give it the all clear before it reopens, and that won't be happening before tomorrow. On the bright side, the chilli at May's Diner is really good," he shrugged apologetically.

Dean swore. "Well, thanks for the intel," he grinned ruefully at the officer, who gave him a salute with the wand, then carefully backed the Impala around as Bobby pulled out his cell and explained the situation to Ronnie. "We'll stop in town," Dean decided, "I gotta call Sam, let him know what's happened."

"If bridges and roads are bein' damaged here, chances are, it's happenin' elsewhere," Bobby reasoned, "It might be best to stay here tonight, then get goin' as soon as a bridge opens tomorrow. Damned plains storms; they can come out o' nowhere, and when they do, they can be damned nasty. A bit like them rap singers, or reality TV 'stars'."

None of the others were happy about the idea, but it was clearly their only option, so they headed back to the small town, and found the diner. As they made their way in, hunched against the rain and wind, an older lady behind the counter looked up and smiled.

"Oh, no, more refugees!" she smiled sympathetically, as did some of the other glum-looking people who'd also apparently been caught out by the weather. "Take a seat, hot chocolate's on the house tonight."

"Ohhhh, this is good," sighed Bobby, as Dean squawked when Kelly slapped his hand as he tried to spear a marshmallow in her mug with a toothpick. Then, like the suspicious old Hunter he was, he asked, "So, looks like we're stayin' here tonight. This happen often? Bridges goin' out on account of the weather?"

"Often enough that we've been complaining to the Council for years," May confided, "The closer to the river they build the bridge, the cheaper it is, you see – the higher it is, the longer it has to be, and the more it'll cost. But then, every time we get a howler like this come in, it disappears underwater! And bits of it get washed away! And people get stuck! And they have to keep paying to repair it! Why don't they just spend the money on a bigger, better bridge to start with? And these are the people who are supposed to be qualified in economics! They couldn't run a Girl Scout cookie drive!"

May's litany of complaint as she refilled their hot chocolate mugs was enough to convince him that there was nothing suspicious at play, just bad weather. "Well, at least we got somewhere warm to set, for a spell," he commented. "Now, in my rich and varied experience, children, any problem encountered is best dealt with on a full stomach, so while we're here, let's eat. Now, May, the young man directin' traffic mentioned your chilli..."

The food was indeed very good – Bobby asked for seconds, and complimented May on her recipe – and while Dean called Sam to explain that they'd been delayed, he asked about accommodation.

"I'm afraid there isn't a lot," she told them regretfully, "We're a town people pass through, on the way to somewhere else. The gun store, the fishing store, the diner, during the high season, we do a lot of business – the motel, not so much, so it's not very big. But they'll squeeze you in. We always manage, when people get stuck here."

"Sam says everything's just peachy," Dean told them when he came back to the table. "Oh, and he found the playlist I left."

"What playlist?" asked Kelly.

"A playlist of _Action Figure Therapy_ episodes," Dean grinned, "RJ loves the ones with Stanley the Honey Badger."

"Oh, I love _AFT!_" chirped Ronnie. "I feel so sorry for Ranger, though, having to cope with his feral workmates, and his feral children, and his wife who wants more feral children, and her homo cat, Mr Whiskers..."

"At least he's got Stanley to keep him company," Dean pointed out. "And Ninja."

"You have to laugh at Jungle, though, don't you?" Ronnie giggled. "Seriously, I know it's politically incorrect, but the 'moustache with titties' thing had me and Andrew laughing for half an hour..."

"Do I even want to know?" asked Kelly.

"I'd suggest not," Bobby said archly, "So, looks like we're headed for..." he peered at the faded card that May had given him, "...The Den."

"The Den, huh?" Ronnie grinned. "Sounds cozy."

"Well, you can be as cozy as you like in your room," Dean pulled a face, "I intend to have a hot shower, and if I can't find a hot woman in this town, maybe at least I can find one, or possibly more, on cable..."

"May did warn that it's only a small place," Bobby cautioned him, "We might have to double up."

"All the old women can bunk together, then," Dean waved a hand dismissively to take in all of his fellow Hunters.

"I'm five years younger than you!" protested Kelly.

"Yeah, well, you've bred with Francis, and he was born a little bitch, who's turning into an old woman," Dean shrugged carelessly. "So you'll all do fine. You can do each other's hair. Bobby, you can just pretend with that. Seriously. I cannot watch porn in the same room as Bobby – who watches porn with their Dad? – or Ronnie – too close to bestiality – or the mother of my brother's child, that would just be weirdest of all..."

"Somewhere dry and horizontal to sleep is what we need," Bobby cut in, "So let's just set fire to that wendigo when we get to it. We've all bunked down in worse places than shared accommodation so let's just get going; we can rest up, then leave first thing as soon as a bridge somewhere opens."

They paid (with Dean nudging Bobby in the ribs when May smiled and slipped him a napkin with a number on it), and headed for the only motel in town.

May had been right on both counts. It wasn't far away, and it wasn't big. It was only a line of small cabinlike rooms, and an office.

"Oh, more refugees, huh?" the middle-aged man behind the counter, identified by his name tag as GARY, smiled understandingly.

"Not the first time tonight we've been called that," Bobby remarked.

"Well, this isn't the first time this has happened," Gary rolled his eyes, "Seriously, anybody who's lived here for a couple of years could tell you that the bridge is just waaaaaay too low, it's asking for trouble, but do those idiots from the Council ever listen to the people who actually live here, nooooooo..."

Before he could launch into a tirade about How Local Government Is Completely Out Of Touch With Reality, Bobby pressed for a couple of rooms.

"Ah, now, we got a problem," the manager scratched his head regretfully. "You see, what with the weather, you're not the only folks stuck here. Plus, I got one of the rooms in the middle of renovation, there's nothing there but nice clean walls and the smell of paint, and the weather put a tree branch through the bathroom window of Number Three, so that's boarded up until we can get the wall inspected and repaired. I only got one room left."

The four of them blinked at each other.

"If you don't mind sharing, I can give you a camp bed," he went on, "And the sofa is actually pretty comfortable..."

"We'll take it," Bobby said firmly, "And be grateful for what we get." The others nodded. Gary handed over a key.

It wasn't anything spectacular, but it was clean, and probably better than most places the Winchesters usually stayed. Gary fetched them extra towels and bedclothes, then bid them goodnight, with a promise to let them know any news about bridge access.

* * *

Looks like Dean's not getting his porn or his female company, poor baby...

So, who gets to sleep where, and what shenanigans pans out? Feed the bunny reviews, and we'll find out!


	14. And The Little One Said 'Roll Over' II

The bunneh finally piped up again - curse The Upleasantly Solid Parsnip Of Real Life! At least we can finish this one off...

* * *

**...And The Little One Said 'Roll Over'**

_**Part the Last**_

There wasn't a lot of space, once the rollaway was unfolded next to the queen bed, and the four dogs made themselves a comfortable snooze pile. "It's uh, kind of... cozy," Dean commented.

"So," Kelly dropped her bag, "Who sleeps where?"

"You blokes should take the bed," Ronnie said, "As the tallest two. You'll be most comfortable there."

"Huh?" Dean gawped. "I'm not sharing a bed with Bobby!"

"Why not?" asked Kelly. "It makes sense. And you've shared a bed with Sam before."

"No! No!" Dean yapped. "Pregnant people should get first call on the bed."

"Ladies first," Bobby agreed, "It's the gentlemanly thing to do. So, you two get the bed, and..."

"Chivalry be damned," Kelly countered. "We've all had a tough day, and we're all carrying damage."

"And we'll fit on the rollaway and sofa better," Ronnie agreed, "Because we're shorter."

"Anyway, if we're going to do the whole 'civilised' prioritisation," said Kelly, "Surely the most venerable should get first pick on the bed?"

"Who you callin' venerable?" yapped Bobby.

"Well, you're not getting any younger, Bobby," Dean beamed.

"If you're that freaked out, Dean, I'll just wolf out, and take the floor with these guys," Ronnie indicated the dogs, "All I need is a blanket, and then there are three beds..."

"No," Dean was firm, "No, I am NOT letting anybody say I drove a pregnant... individual to sleep on the floor so I could have a bed to myself. And you'd take up space we don't really have. I do NOT want to trip over a damned werewolf on my way to the bathroom. I'd have nightmares. Plus, I have no desire whatsoever to find out if werewolf farts smell as bad as actual dog farts..."

"Well, we can't all fit in the bed," Kelly stated the obvious.

"We draw straws," specified Bobby, in a voice that brooked no argument. He turned his back and plucked some twigs from a dried arrangement on a small side table. "Longest two get the bed, next longest gets next pick, and that's the end of the discussion."

Dean went first, and drew a long piece of twig. Kelly's was almost as long. "So, looks like you and me," Dean waggled his eyebrows at Kelly, "It'll drive Sam nuts when he finds out..."

Ronnie drew what was clearly the longest of all. Dean let out a squawk of horror.

"Serves you right," smirked Kelly, picking up a pillow case to make up the sofa, "But rest assured, I am totally telling Sam about who you spent the night with..."

"I am NOT sharing the bed with HER!" Dean yapped.

"If I recall correctly," Ronnie mused, "You once hid yourself in my bed, wearing nothing but a daisy behind one ear and a beautiful smile..."

"That does count!" Dean yipped. "I was cursed! I'll go sleep in my car."

"Don't be an idiot," Ronnie snapped briskly, "It's freezing out there, you'll get soaked before you get the door open, and you'll sleep better in here. For the record, you wouldn't be my first choice, either, but just for once, we're going to have to behave like adults about it."

"Amen to that," pronounced Bobby authoritatively, making up the camp bed, "Now, while we do this, why don't you idjits take turns in the shower? Don't use up all the hot water."

Ronnie took her bag and headed for the bathroom as Dean muttered mutinously but dumped his bag on the bed. "If she's a drooler," he growled, "I will not be happy."

"Suck it up, princess," humphed Bobby, shaking out a blanket, "We've all bunked down in worse places."

"Much worse," confirmed Kelly. "I once spent a night, weather was worse than this, in an upside down junked estate wagon at the nottom of an old quarry being used as a garbage dump. It was damp, but the rotting crap around it kept me warm."

"And nobody's shootin' at us," Bobby added, "Bonus, that."

"Yeah, yeah," grumbled Dean, pulling things from his own bag, "First world problem. Think of the poor starving children in Africa who don't even have werewolves..."

"Not exactly," Bobby chimed in, "Although they do have a hyena-spirit which can be pretty unsavoury."

Ronnie emerged in bedtime sweats shortly after, and Dean let out a little shriek.

"Aaaaaaargh! Fuck, you look like one of those Greek monsters with snakes for hair..."

"Gorgon," she rolled her eyes. "Don't be such a sook, you've seen me with my hair out before. You've worn this body like a meatsuit, for fuck's sake!"

"That doesn't mean I wanna be startled by it," he grumped back, heading for the bathroom.

"How has Sam put up with him for so long?" she wondered out loud.

"Cultivated deafness, I guess," shrugged Bobby.

"I just hope he doesn't have any... enjoyable dreams," Kelly said, "Sam says they can get kind of... raunchy. If the noises are anything to go by."

"Hey!" a damp, angry head appeared around the bathroom door shortly after, "The other towel in here is damp!"

"I needed it for my hair," Ronnie told Dean, "It's still got enough drying power for you. Unless you've grown a chest rug recently. In which case, I can give you the address of the salon that did your leg wax for me, when I was using your body..."

"Bitch," muttered Dean, withdrawing.

When the tag-team bathroom use was done and they'd re-checked each other's various wounds and dressings, they decided to turn in.

"Move your ass," demanded Dean, "This is my side."

"What?" Ronnie sounded bemused. "Since when do you have a 'side'? Don't you usually have a single?"

"I'm always closest to the door," Dean specified, "So, roll over, Rover."

"It's a big brother thing," Bobby grinned, "Best just do what he says."

"Yeah, yeah, woof woof," she griped, shuffling across. "Do I get a treat now?"

"You get bragging rights," Dean informed her, "You get to say that you shared a bed with the Living Sex God."

"Funny that," Kelly smiled, "Sam says it's nothing he wants to brag about."

"That's because he's a bitch," Dean said shortly.

"Alright, children, time for lights out," Bobby decided, "Don't make me come around with the wooden spoon."

"You kinky old bastard."

"Shut up, Dean."

"Hey! Quit stealing the covers!"

"I am not stealing the covers! It just seems like it because you're as far over your side as you can get."

"Don't you dare invade my side – if so much as a single toe crosses the centreline of this mattress, I swear I will cut it off."

"Don't flatter yourself, girly-man."

"Stop it! You're doing it again!"

"I'm not!"

"You are!"

"I'm not!"

"Are!"

"Not!"

"Are!"

"Not!"

"Bobby! She's stealing the covers!"

"SHADDAP BEFORE I GIVE BOTH YOU IDJITS SOMETHING TO REALLY WHINE ABOUT!"

There was some shuffling of bedclothes as they settled, and Bobby turned out the last light.

"Dean," asked Kelly in the dimness, "What were you doing in Ronnie's bed wearing nothing but a daisy?"

"And a smile," Bobby reminded her.

"He was lying in wait," Ronnie's tone indicated that she was probably wearing an expression remarkably similar to a Sam Bitchface™.

"It wasn't my fault!" Dean snapped. "I got hit by a Prince Charming curse!"

"As if that wasn't bad enough, the next day, he accosted me, under pretence of bringing breakfast, wearing nothing but an apron saying KISS THE COOK, and made suggestions about doing things with syrup that didn't involve pancakes at all..."

"I was cursed!" shrieked Dean.

"This was after he chased me up a tree, promising escapades of carnal delight..."

"_It was a curse!_" Dean insisted.

"It was a lovely weddin' to break it, though," Bobby sighed, "Simple, and elegant. Even if your bridesmaid did look a bit like a pirate who'd been frightened by a Bedazzler at an impressionable age in that shirt."

"Poor Cas," recalled Ronnie, "He wasn't happy about having his hair braided for the occasion. I wonder if he ever did smite that shirt afterwards? He said he was going to."

"IT – WAS – A – CURSE!" howled Dean. "Aren't we supposed to be trying to go to sleep?"

"I'll give you the full story tomorrow on the road," Ronnie promised Kelly.

"Whatever she says, it's mostly totally untrue," protested Dean. "You can't trust her. Australia is a nation of criminals. Look, she's even stealing the covers again…"

"Okay, say goodnight Gracie," announced Bobby. Silence descended, interrupted only by the occasional snuffle of one of the dogs...

And then, The Smell.

"Hmmmm?" Ronnie noticed it first. "Wha..? Oh, that's disgusting! Dean, was that you, you filthy bastard?"

"What did I do?" protested Dean, "What am I supposed to have... oh, Jesus H Christ! Don't you dare blame me for that! Gaaaah! What the hell did you eat tonight?"

"It wasn't me!" Ronnie hissed.

"Well, it wasn't me!" Dean snapped back, flapping the covers. "Oh, I think I'm dissolving..."

"Don't do that, you're letting the warm out!" protested Ronnie.

"I'm letting your disgusting gas out!" he flapped harder. "You're as bad as Francis!"

"What are you two idjits bitchin' about?" demanded Bobby. "We're supposed to be... oh. Oh. God's tits, that's disgustin'..."

"That's just what I was saying," Dean growled, "This isn't working! Stop it, Shepherd!"

"It's not me, you dickhead!" Ronnie slapped his arm. "Stop flapping!"

"What are you... oh," The Smell reached Kelly.

"This bitch is trying to dissolve me!" explained Dean, as Ronnie attempted to stop him flapping the bedclothes.

"Uh, I don't think she is," Kelly replied ruefully, "I think you'll find it's Morgan."

"Morgan?" chorused Ronnie and Dean.

"Yeah," Kelly went on, "When she sleeps, she, uh, relaxes all over. Inside and out. And, uh, sometimes, _that_ happens." She propped herself up on an elbow, and smiled at the picture of the dogs all curled together. "I think that she just feels particularly safe and comfortable right now."

As if to back her Hunter up, Morgan let out a happy little yip in her sleep, and wagged her tail, sending a fresh wave over the hapless Hunters.

"Oh, God, I should've recognised it," moaned Ronnie, "It's the Wildhunt Arse."

"Wildhunt Ass?" echoed Dean.

"Yeah," she went on mournfully. "Wildhunt dogs kind of have the capacity to turn organic matter of any sort into a potent nerve gas, just by eating it. It's stronger in some lines than others. Arko could be pretty bad, but Mako, he could be toxic..."

"... And via the miracle of artificial insemination, Mako was Morgan's sire," finished Kelly. "Jack and Carol used to wonder if there was some Greyhound blood in the lineage somewhere, that would explain a lot."

"How are you not dead yet?" Dean wanted to know.

"It's just a dog thing," Bobby shrugged, "All dogs tend to have a diet with a lot o' meat protein in it. Rumsfeld – not Rumsfeld or Rumsfeld, but Rumsfeld – he was an ordinary Rottie, and after nibblin' on a dead lizard, he could clear a garage in five seconds flat."

"I lost a few room deposits, this way," Ronnie recalled her German Shepherd Hunting dogs fondly, "I had to plead a bad bout of gastro, once. And in one place, I'm pretty sure Mako actually scorched the wallpaper."

"Speaking of scorching the wall..." Kelly began.

"No!' Dean interrupted, "We are NOT speaking of scorching the wall! We are not talking about dog farting at all!"

"Well, you always complain about the lavender that Jimi's line manage to produce," Kelly pointed out.

"We've all dealt with worse," Bobby's tone indicated that the discussion was at an end. "I've spent time sharin' a foxhole with a guy who'd clearly been dead for a couple o' days, and this aint nothin' compared to that. See? It's dissipatin' already. Now, go to sleep."

"Yes, Mommy," trilled Dean. Ronnie elbowed him viciously. Silence descended once more.

And then... The Other Smell.

"Oh, great," muttered Dean, as the scent of lavender-fragranced Hellhound gas wafted around the room, "Which one of you bastards did that?"

"Shut up, Dean," complained Ronnie, "It's probably Lemmy."

"I can't breathe!" Dean complained.

"Yeah you can," Bobby replied, "You got enough breath to bitch, I notice."

"It stinks!" whined Dean.

"It's free aromatherapy," Kelly told him. "It's supposed to be good for stress relief, and relaxation. It's supposed to help you go to sleep."

"Yeah," humphed Dean, "By poisoning me."

"Dean, the smell of lavender is not poisonous," Ronnie said through clenched teeth.

"Says you," he griped, pulling the blankets over his head. "And if you Dutch oven me, I'm headin' out to get silver ammo."

"Can we try to get to sleep sometime this year?" suggested Bobby.

A dog huffed. A Hunter turned over. The occupants of the room headed for the Land of Nod.

Silence descended.

Until...

_Snaaaaaaaaaaaaargk_

Dean shot upright, knife in hand, as Bobby flicked on the side table light.

"What was that?" he hissed.

"Sounded like someone tryin' to start a chainsaw that needs servicin'," noted Bobby.

"Could've been a passing car," shrugged Ronnie, indicating the dogs; they were all still curled together "They don't think it's anything to worry about. Turn the light off, Bobby, you'll wake Kelly."

Bobby turned the light out. They went back to sleep.

_Snaaaaaaaaaaaaargk_

"Wsfglmrl?" Dean's body was sitting up, ready to wield the knife, before his brain was awake again.

"What the hell is that?" wondered Bobby.

"They still don't seem to care," Ronnie waved at the dogs. Lemmy opened one eye, as if to protest about the light. "Maybe we're all having some group hallucination?"

"Brought on by interrupted sleep," griped Dean, looking blearily at the clock; barely fifteen minutes had gone by since the first interruption.

"We'll live," Bobby said philosophically, turning out the light again.

Silence descended.

_Snaaaaaaaaaaaaargk_

"Sonofabitch!" Dean sat up again, and looked at the clock. Another fifteen minutes since the last interruption. "What the hell is that?"

"What I want to know," muttered Ronnie with a yawn, "Is how the hell _she _keeps just sleeping through it." She jerked a thumb at Kelly. "There's a word for Hunters who sleep that hard. The word is 'corpse'."

"Maybe she's just feelin' safe, like her dog," Bobby sighed, "Come on, let's try to get back to..."

_Snaaaaaaaaaaaaargk_

The three of them jumped as Kelly let out another window-rattling snore.

"Well, that solves that," humphed Bobby. "Either she's got jackhammers where the rest of us have tonsils, or she swallowed a chainsaw during childhood. Hey!" he reached up and prodded at Kelly's leg as she made a _gnarkgnarkgnark_ noise, "Knock it off! You're keepin' folks in Florida awake!"

"Hrnmf?" enquired Kelly sleepily.

"You're snoring!" snapped Ronnie. "Stop it! There's people here trying to sleep!" Kelly mumbled incomprehensibly, and rolled over.

"Isn't there something you can do to stop people snoring?" Dean asked. "Like, sew a bowling ball into the back of their shirt?"

"Karen got me trained early on with a good sharp elbow in the ribs," Bobby confided.

"I use the kick in the shin," Ronnie shared. "And, um, Andrew prods me in the side. We're still getting each other trained, what with being kind of late starters with the whole sharing-a-room-permanently, let along sharing a bed."

"I threw shoes at Francis," Dean told them, "Still do, occasionally. And he throws them back." He looked over to Kelly. "I guess if you're mostly Hunting solo, you don't have somebody to train you." He glared at Ronnie. "You dare kick me in the shin, I'll stab you."

"She does it again, I'll just give her a prod," Bobby assured them, turning out the light once more.

Silence descended. The weather swirled around the small room, yet managed to add to the ambiance of warm coziness, as the sounds of the night lulled them back to sleep. Wind whistled in the eaves, rain pattered against the windows, the tyres on a passing vehicle shushed along the wet road, a lone and forlorn owl hooted as it huddled in its hollow, thunder rumbled distantly, an elephant playing a trombone stuck its head into their room and honked a two-note fanfare...

"Kelly!" spat Dean, "Fuckin' knock it off!"

"What?" demanded the other Hunter, startled awake just as he had been. "What did I do?"

"That's a damned good question," Ronnie added, rubbing her eyes, "Aren't we a bit far from the ocean for foghorns?"

"I thought a damned truck was heading right for us!" hissed Kelly. "What gives? Bobby? Did you hear that? What was it? Bobby?..."

The eldest Hunter was sound asleep, and let out the gentle snore of a man who might've been widowed young, but was well-trained at an impressionable age.

"If Bobby's not worried enough to wake up, I'm betting it's nothing to worry about," suggested Ronnie, lying down again. "Hey! Now who's stealing the blankets?"

"Shut up, and go to sleep, Lassie."

They settled down, waiting for a visit from the elusive Sleepy-Bobos fairy…

What they got was another elephantine trombonist.

"It wasn't me!" yipped Kelly, startled, "It seriously wasn't me!"

"I was just nodding off, too," griped Ronnie, "Who the hell practises with their tuba at this hour?"

"Well, people have all sorts of rituals they use if they can't sleep," Kelly pointed out.

"It happens again, I'm goin' looking," growled Dean, punching his pillow, "With a really big cork…"

_Pfwooooooooooooorp_

They froze in stunned silence.

"Jesus suffering fuck," breathed Ronnie, "How does he not wake himself up?"

"Chilli," groaned Dean, "He had two helpings of frigging chilli! Bobby! Bobby, wake up! And stop…"

_PfwooooOOOOooooorp_

"Oh, God," wailed Kelly, "If I'd known we could've force-fed him one of Morgan's charcoal and chlorophyll biscuits, they're supposed to help with…"

_PfwaaaAAAAAAArrrrrrrrrrrp_

"Bobby!" yapped Dean irritably, reaching down and poking his practically-father in the shoulder, "Bobby! Knock it off!"

"Hrrrmf?" Bobby blinked blearily at him. "Wassup?"

"Your emission rating!" Dean complained. "Seriously, knock it off! Before you, blast yourself into space and leave a hole in the roof!"

"Shadd'p," muttered Bobby, rolling over and releasing another sonorous blast before nodding off again.

"Bobby!" Kelly wailed, "Nobody can sleep with you doing… that!"

"Grrrmf," Bobby snuggled into his pillow.

"Maybe he's kind of all, er, emitted out now," suggested Ronnie doubtfully. "Come on, let's go back to sleep. Dean, will you stop stealing the bloody…"

_PfwoooooOOOOOOOaaAAAAAAAAAaarppppthththththt_

"For fuck's sake, Bobby," snarled Dean, "If you don't stop farting like a two tone air-horn, I'm gonna nail you to the roof of a truck!"

_PFWOOOOOOOOOORPPPPPPPP_

"Goddamnit, I'll shove a cork up your ass you noisy old bastard!"

"N'Ill fuckin' shootcha," muttered Bobby, "Shut up, Dean, aint nothin' your brother and you didn't do to me when you were kids."

"Oh, don't get me started on Diaper Noises turned all the way up to eleven," moaned Kelly, as Ronnie groaned in solidarity. "There was one time…"

"Stop. Right. There," Dean said flatly. "I am NOT getting you started on Diaper Noises fit to wake the dead, okay? Been there, done that, got the traumatised little brother to prove it. We are NOT talking about Diaper Noises, the Screaming Scale, or the Enfecalation Event Rating System…"

"Connor had an honest-to-Cas Level Five event, once," Ronnie shuddered, "I'm not kidding, it was like the Crap Apocalypse, zombies would've been OW! That was my shin!"

"I'll put my boots back on next time!" Dean snapped, "It's time to sleep! Not snore, not fart, not suffocate everybody in the room, not steal the fucking covers, sleep!"

"Yes, Mum," Ronnie rolled over with a humph.

"Sleepovers at the ADHD Club must be more restful than this," griped Kelly.

"Shut up."

"Fuck you."

"Nuh-uh, not interested in baby bro's sloppy seconds."

"Kelly, put it down – yeah, werewolf night vision – and ordinarily I'd hold your jacket while you did it, but I don't want to sleep next to a corpse."

"Shaddap, idjits."

Resentful grumbles and muttered threats of grievous bodily harm subsided. Silence descended.

The wind howled. The rain pattered. The trees swished. The plastic rustled…

Dean snapped awake; his was a hindbrain that could hear the opening of a beer bottle or the crunch of snack food the way that a dog can be snoozing in a sunny window, but hear toast crumbs hit the carpet at the other end of the house. His stomach rumbled, loud and hopefully, as conditioned as any of Professor Pavlov's dogs had ever been.

He lay still, feeling the other side of the bed move slightly, as plastic crinkled.

"What have you got there?" he hissed.

"Noth'n'," Ronnie gave a garbled reply, "Go ba' t' slee'."

"Have you got food?" he demanded more loudly, "Have you got…" he sniffed. "Have you got jerky?"

"Urrr… no?" The noise that followed suggested crunching, and a hurried swallow. "Go back to sleep, Dean, you gotta drive tomorrow. Er, this morning…"

"You have!" he declared, "You got jerky!"

"I get hungry, all right?" she snapped, taking another bite, "It's a pregnant thing. I need red meat.'

"You shouldn't be eating processed meat," he stated loftily. "All that preservative and shit is bad for pregnant people. So, hand it over, for your own good, and I'll eat it for you."

"Like hell," she rumbled, chewing. "Anyway, it's not full of preservative. It's homemade."

"You got homemade beef jerky, and you didn't tell me?" said Dean in a hurt voice. His stomach backed up his disappointment noisily.

"Of course I didn't tell you!" Ronnie tutted, "Because if I did you'd have scoffed the lot! And it's not beef," she took another crunching bite, "It's venison."

Dean sniffed. "Is that… is that done with sage?"

"A bit, and some rosemary, but not a lot, not for my pregnant cravings stash… HEY!"

Like a striking snake, Dean scooted across the bed, reached over, and snagged the meaty morsel. "Ohhhhh," he moaned, cramming it into his mouth, "This is soooo gooood… you got any more?"

"Not for you!" she hissed.

"You do!" he insisted, "I heard a bag, and you said 'stash'! You got more! You got jerky, and you didn't tell me, you asshole! Come on, hand it over…"

"Like hell!" she yapped.

"Gimme!" he lunged for the bag.

"Stop it! Bloody thief! You'd take the iron-and-protein-supply from a pregnant woman's mouth?"

"Nope," he replied, as the wrestled for the bag, "Just the stuff you haven't slobbered on yet…"

"Knock it off!"

"Gimme!"

"Knock it off!"

"Share, you cow!"

STOP IT!"

They rolled back and forth across the bed, a grunting, swearing, growling wrestle, grabbing at the bag, until the inevitable happened.

"GOD'S TITS!" barked Bobby, as the grappling combatants rolled off the bed and landed on him in a tangle of bedding and cusswords.

Kelly let out a little scream, and sat up, gun in hand. "BOBBY!?"

"Oooof!" he let out a grunt as the air was knocked out of him. "Get off me, you asshats!" he wheezed, as Dean and Ronnie flailed ineffectually at the blankets and each other.

"You greedy bitch!" yelled Dean.

Ronnie's wolf teeth descended, and she let out a threatening, guttural snarl.

"What the FUCK are you two idjits playin' at?!" roared Bobby, spluttering a bit as he got his breath back.

"She's eating jerky in bed!" Dean yelled back, "I'll lyin' here, with my stomach growling, and she's got jerky, a SUPPLY of jerky, the homemade stuff, and she won't share!"

Kelly blinked in bemusement. "So, you two idiots are killing each other over jerky?"

"It's damned good jerky," Ronnie said sulkily, snatching the bag away, "I get cravings, okay? And he tried to STEAL it! What?" she glared at Dean. "Look, I get these urges to go out and kill something – or somebody – and feed in the middle of the night, okay? Sam thinks it might be an instinct to avoid detection, kill and eat extra protein while I'm in whelp, and do it when least likely to be seen. I kind of figured that stuffing my face with jerky would attract less attention than going out and tearing out the heart of the nearest night shift worker, because hey, call me nuts, I've been fighting this thing since I was seventeen frigging years old…"

"Jesus K-Reist!" snapped Kelly, "I thought something had found its way in and was eating Bobby, and it's just you two morons, arguing over a piece of dead animal? Shit!"

"It's venison," Dean added sullenly. "With sage. And rosemary. Taste it, and you'll see what I mean."

"Dean," Kelly growled, "It is zero-dark-hundred in the MIDDLE of the fucking NIGHT! I don't want to taste jerky! I want to sleep! Fuck me, how old are you two?"

"Get the hell off me," rumbled Bobby dangerously, "Go back to bed, and go back to sleep."

"Yeah, yeah," griped Dean, as they clumsily disentangled themselves and set about remaking the bed, "But the least you could do would be to hand some over. Or you'll just bitch all night – okay, all morning – that the rumbling of my stomach is keeping you awake…"

"Dean," Kelly cut in pleasantly as Ronnie snarled at him, "Trying to get meat away from a werewolf who's just told you she's getting these primal urges to pull someone's heart out and eat it to feed her unborn pup? Maybe not smart."

"Don't worry about the werewolf," Bobby told them, "Worry about the grumpy old bastard who's gonna knock your idjit heads together - if I hear either one of you say 'jerky' or 'share' or 'steal' before the sun comes up, I swear that's what I'll do until I get me some peace an' quiet, do I make myself clear, children?"

"Yes, Bobby," they chorused, getting back into bed.

_Groooblbloorblblorblbrobglobblglooblgloob_

"Dean," Kelly asked in bemusement, "Was that you?"

_Brorblbrobbrobbroblgromblblblblblblbbroooorb_

"Non-pregnant people get hungry too, you know," Dean griped defensively.

"Balls," groaned Bobby, "Ronnie, give him somethin' to eat, or we'll never get any shut-eye with that noise of this idjit's digestive distress."

"It's her fault," Dean said sullenly, "For not sharing."

With a snarling glare, Ronnie proffered a stick of the jerky. With an equally unhelpful sneer, Dean took it, and shoved it into his mouth. Bobby muttered something about being too old for this shit, and turned out the light.

After a few minutes of contented eating noises (_Burrrrrrrp_ "Oh, pardon me, but this stuff is just too good." "It is, isn't it?" "Yeah. You really made this?" "Yeah. We did some with juniper berries too, but I can't eat that, juniper's not safe for pregnancy. Works a treat with venison, though. I could give you the recipe." "That's be great!" "Shaddap, ya idjits!"), the sounds of nocturnal degustation faded away.

Silence descended. Again.

It started with a small creak of bedsprings. Then silence. Then a creak of bedsprings again. Then silence. Then, once more, the sound of sproinging.

"Dean?" Ronnie whispered. Dean mumbled something incomprehensible. "Dean, are you okay?"

Dean mumbled again, and wiggled.

"Yeah, that's good," he said with a sigh.

"Er, okay," she muttered, rolling back over.

"Ohhhhh, that's real good," Dean added.

_sproing sproing_

"Dean," began Ronnie uncertainly, "Are you... mate, are you bouncing on the mattress?"

"Errrrrrr ooooOOOOOOOherrrrr," went Dean.

_sproing sproing sproing_

"You are!" Ronnie hissed, "Stop it! Stop bouncing the bed!"

_sproing sproing __**sproing**__ sproing_

"What's that noise?" mumbled Kelly sleepily. "Is something creaking?

"Dean's bouncing on the mattress," griped Ronnie.

"Ohhhhh, God, that's fantastic," moaned Dean.

_sproing sproing sproing __**sproing sproing**_

"Oh, no," breathed Ronnie in horror, "He's having a... happy dream..."

Dean let out a tremulous rising moan. "Where's that syrup?" he gasped breathily.

"Stop him!" shrieked Kelly, "Stop him! Wake him up!"

"Dean!" Ronnie yapped, poking his shoulder tentatively, "Dean, wake up!"

Dean smiled beautifully in his sleep, rolled over, and grabbed Ronnie in a passionate clinch.

She let out a horrified squeak, and froze.

"Get him off me!" she squealed in a tiny voice.

"You smell so good," he breathed huskily, as Kelly looked around wildly.

"Help!" Ronnie's voice was barely there. "H-h-h-help!"

Kelly grabbed up a boot, and threw it at the bed. It bounced off Dean's side.

"I love an assertive woman," Dean moaned.

"Eeeeeeeeeeeee!" went Ronnie breathlessly.

"Uh, maybe if you just hold still, he'll, uh, let go, and roll over again?" suggested Kelly.

Dean began to... move.

"Wanna go get those fluffy handcuffs?" he whispered in a deep seductive tone.

Ronnie let out an ear-splitting scream.

Dean snapped awake, and also let out a scream.

"GOD'S TITS!" Bobby yelled, gun at the ready, "What the hell is goin' on!"

"He – he – he..." Ronnie clutched the bedclothes to her chin.

"She was molesting me!" Dean shrieked, "That woman was molesting me!"

Ronnie finally found her voice as outrage caught up with shock. "You were humping my leg!" she shrieked, "You perve!"

"Dean was having, uh, one of his, um, enjoyable dreams," Kelly explained, "And he kind of, uh, started acting out..."

Bobby put his face in his hands. "There are days," he sighed, "There are days, when I wonder if I should summon Crowley, and ask what the rent on the Cage would be, now it's unoccupied..."

Ronnie whuffed briefly to Lita, who extracted herself reluctantly from the dog-pile, and lay down along the middle of the bed.

"Hey!" Dean protested, "There aint room for her! I got hardly any room!"

"You wanna molest something, you perve, you can try her," Ronnie shot back grumpily, snuggling up to her dog.

"She sticks her tongue in my ear, I reserve the right to scream again," complained Dean.

"Look, I realise that it's probably an act of sheer optimism," sighed Bobby, "But can we try to get, say, fifteen minutes of sleep before the sun comes up?'

Bedclothes were fluttered. Pillows were pummelled. They settled again.

Silence descended.

Well, silence didn't actually descend for what was left of the night; it was more like it was bungee jumping...

"_sniff sniff _– Oh my God, your dog just farted! Why do we have to have her on the bed?"

"Shut up! It's your fault! And lavender smells nice. Nicer than... oh, no, Morgan's 'relaxing' again..."

"Hey, toss my boot back over here – I want to throw it at you again."

_PfwoooooOOOOOOOaaAAAAAAAAAaarppppthththththt_

"Bobby doesn't have any Hellhound blood, does he?"

_Snaaaaaaaaaaaaargk_

"Kelly! Shut! Up!"

"Are you eating? Are you eating again? Will you at least chew with your mouth shut?"

_Brorblbrobbrobbroblgromblblblblblblbbroooorb_

"Feed that idjit before he sets off any local seismic monitorin' station, would ya?"

"Aaaaaargh! You dog just stick her tongue in my ear!"

"You French my dog, and I'll see you arrested."

"SHADDAP!"

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

Eventually the sun rose. Feeling about as rested as a single parent with week-old triplets, Dean went through the ritual of Man Awakening (yawn, stretch, fart, scratch groin), and rolled over. Lita regarded him cheerfully, and kissed him on the nose.

"Yeah, good morning to you," he growled, crawling out from under the covers. "Hey," he prodded Ronnie's shoulder, "Sun's up."

Ronnie let out a purely canine growl that very clearly said _I am not ready to leave the Den_. "Haven't you ever heard the phrase 'Let sleeping dogs lie'?" she yawned.

"Sleeping bitches are a different matter," he griped, taking his clothes and heading for the bathroom.

"Not like we can go anywhere until we find out about the bridge," Bobby pointed out, sitting up and wincing as he stretched gingerly.

"Nrrrrrg," mumbled Kelly, "Wake me up at about half past tomorrow, would you."

"Here," Ronnie tossed Kelly's boot back; it landed on the other woman, eliciting an 'Ooof!' and a grumbling move to get up, "I can drive if you want."

"You look like I feel," sighed Kelly.

"That does not reassure me in the least," replied Ronnie.

"Well, I guess the best thing we can do is head back to May's, and see if her coffee's as good as her chilli," grunted Bobby, picking up his clothes.

"If her coffee has the same effect as her chilli, you are ridin' home in the trunk," stated Dean.

Looking like a group of extras from a remake of Night Of The Living Dead, they left The Den, and headed back to the diner.

"Rough night, huh?" asked the proprietor sympathetically.

"Just a bit... noisy," Bobby gave her a wan smile as she put down his coffee.

"Well, a good breakfast will help!" she said cheerfully, handing over menus. "A lot of people swear by my chilli-on-a-shingle to get them started after a rough night..."

"He'll have the pancakes," interrupted Dean.

The mood lifted somewhat when the deputy who'd been stopping traffic the previous night came in through the door, looking haggard but relieved.

"Thought I recognised the Chevy," he smiled tiredly, addressing the visitors in the diner. "Thought you folks would like to know, the river's dropped, and the bridge has been given the all clear."

A small ragged cheer went up from the people who had been stuck overnight.

"The firehouse has sent a pumper down," he explained, "They've just gotta clear some flood debris, then it should be open within the hour. You can pass on the good news, May."

"Will do," she said with a smile, handing over a tray of coffees to him. "Looks like you folks can head for home."

"After more coffee," sighed Dean, "More of your wonderful, wonderful coffee..."

After breakfast, and provendered with more coffee and a large piece of apricot pie, the Impala and the truck following headed for Singer Salvage.

"If Francis greets us at the door with a big cheerful smile, I will hurt him," grumbled Dean, stretching his neck and wincing. "Crap, I haven't slept that badly since RJ first arrived."

"Well, takin' care of three small kids was maybe not a walk in the park," Bobby pointed out.

"Ha! He said he had everything under control," Dean griped. "I spent the night bein' kept awake by you asshats, while he was watching honey badger videos, and playing with the kids, and having Daddy time with Frances."

They finally pulled into the yard, and shuffled towards the house.

"Well, it's still standin'," shrugged Bobby, opening the door. "And I don't hear any screamin', that's a good sign... oh."

"Huh?" Dean nearly bumped into him, "What's... oh."

The kitchen looked like a tornado had gone through it. There were bottles, sippy cups, and formula measures in the sink, and half a dozen cloths on the floor. A carefully bundled bag of diapers sat by the trash, and beside that, a bucket with baby clothes in it.

"Ew," Ronnie wrinkled her nose, "Looks like there was an Enfecalation Event."

"Er, guys," Kelly called quietly, peering into the living room, "You might wanna see this."

Old Janis lay on the floor, relaxed but alert. Her tail thumped the floor in welcome, but she didn't move from her position.

The living room was in a similar state of disarray, with cloths, clothes, and kid-wrangling supplies strewn around. The sofa bed was unfolded, and the two travel cribs were positioned beside it. However, they were unoccupied.

Sam was sprawled on the sofa bed. His face looked haggard, with dark circles showing under his eyes, and let out the snuffling snore that Dean recognised as indicating that his little brother was exhausted. RJ snuggled into him on one side, and Connor on the other. Frances was nestled carefully into the crook of his shoulder. The head of Stanley the honey badger poked out from the covers.

"Heh heh," chuckled Bobby, "Looks like we weren't the only ones who didn't get much rest last night."

"Let sleeping kids lie," smiled Ronnie.

"Good idea," agreed Kelly, "If they're quiet, don't interrupt." She yawned. "I'll make a start on the kitchen."

"I'll get onto the laundry," Ronnie said, "Dean, could you give me a hand and pick up what needs washing in here?"

"Yeah, sure," Dean grinned, reaching down to grab one of the spit-up cloths. "Looks like you guys had a rough night, too," he said to Janis. The old dog gave him a surprisingly evocative whuff.

He moved quietly around the room, picking up things, but Sam's Dean-radar tripped anyway. "D'n?" he mumbled.

"Right here, Sleeping Beauty," Dean smirked, "Don't disturb the kids, they're all asleep. Stay right where you are. Don't you dare move until they do, okay?"

"Kay," Sam smiled sleepily, then nodded off again.

Dean shook his head in amusement. He should be waking Sam up, and demanding the details of his 'everything's okey-dokey' day, just to see his little brother bitchface at him. But, he reasoned, he could be just as annoying once Sam woke up. So he left them under the watchful guardianship of Janis, bundled the laundry up, and went to see if he could find out what had happened to Mrs Witherspoon's cookies.

But not before he took a few pictures, because, hey, two generations of blackmail _gold_.

* * *

Dean attempted to share Ronnie's bed once before, in 'Prince Charming', when he was cursed. I don't think either of them ever recovered completely from that.

Don't look now, but I think little Stewie, who's dictating 'I Love To Go A-Wandering', has been squeaking again.

Also, to my UTTER HORROR, I've got two little proto-bunnies hopping around; so far, they haven't done anything except give me possible titles and a very VERY short description - 'Here Comes The Snide' (Ronnie & Andrew's wedding, with Winchesters saving the day), and 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow' (Dean and Cas having to pose as a gay couple at a convention to foil a dastardly demonic plot). Did one of you send these little buggers down here? Well? *taps foot and frowns at The Denizens* They disappeared as soon as I saw them, but I'm pretty sure that one was wearing a life jacket, and one was clutching a duty-free bag, indicating that they've both travelled. Seriously, who don't these little mongrels wait until they at least have a hint of a plot before they jump out? They're supposed to be PLOT bunnies, FFS!


	15. Lampito Meets Part I

It's been a while since we had an orphaned plot bunny, but this one popped out of the kettle this morning.

A number of people have remarked that God as He exists in the Jimiverse seems like a pretty cool sort of guy, and they have wondered what He's like.

Meanwhile, back here in Real Life, I have a secret yen to host a chat show entitled 'Grow The Fuck Up', which would be like a medley of Dr Phil, Sally Jesse Raphael and Full Metal Jacket: self-absorbed, shallow morons will come onto my show to tell everyone all about their banal and self-induced problems – "I'm 25, and my Mom says I have to move out, or start paying board! It's, like, so unfaaaaaaair!" – while I sit in my chair, nodding and looking concerned, and when they've finished, I lean over, slap them up the side of the head, and bellow 'Well, it's time for you to Grow The Fuck Up! NEXT!" Then the next one comes in. Repeat until ad break.

Seeing as my chances of getting my desired chat show in Real Life are only technically slightly higher than my chance of being crowned Miss World, Miss Olympia or Miss Manners, I must make do with what is available in the Jimiverse.

An opportunity to merge the two suggests itself…

Of course, if I was to host God on my chat show, I certainly couldn't shout G.T.F.U. at Him, on account of Him being about as grown up as it's possible to be. So maybe I'd have to modify my style somewhat. A bit more Michael Parkinson, a bit less R. Lee Ermey; more civilized, if not quite as much fun.

So, since we love a good bit of blasphemy here in the Jimiverse, I direct your attention to the small cosy set with two comfy chairs, a small table and a potted palm (without a vulture perching in it), and the show's logo in the background – _**LAMPITO MEETS...**_

As ever, if you don't like the God I write in the Jimiverse, go and invent your own.

* * *

**Lampito Meets…**

**Lampito:** Good evening, welcome Denizens, Lurkers, Visitors and Casual Droppers-In, we are blessed tonight, possibly even Blessed. I realize that the promos for this week said we would be interviewing Crowley, currently ruler of Hell, but that interview will not be going ahead…

**Denizens:** Boo hiss, boo hiss, false advertising, stone her, etc.

**Lampito:** But instead, we have another guest, Whom I think you'll find just as interesting. Please welcome, from the Jimiverse, the Man Upstairs Himself, God.

_Theme music plays, audience applauds. There is a clap of thunder and a flash of light; God appears sitting in the other comfy chair as Lampito falls of hers. He smiles and waves, as the guy on the sound board complains about burnt out relays, and the lighting bloke yelps frantically for new globes._

**Lampito (climbing back into her chair):** Was that strictly necessary?

**God:** Well, whenever I make an appearance, people expect a certain amount of show. It could've been worse; if I'd done the whole burning bush thing, we'd all be sprinting for the exits as the sprinklers doused us with fire retardant.

**Lampito:** Whatever happened to not in the storm, not in the fire, not in the earthquake, but a small still voice?

**God:** Elijah didn't have a talk show. He was hiding from the Israelites, not trying to attract them as audience share. You want a storm and a fire and an earthquake?

**Lampito:** No! Look, just… just don't do that again. So, er, welcome, um, Your Godness… Your Almightyship… Yahweh… Eternal Father… um, what exactly should I call You?"

**God:** I have many names.

**Lampito:** Well, yes, but so does the guy who sang 'Purple Rain' and 'Little Red Corvette'. I can't just call you Mr Squiggle.

**God:** Well, just pick one. You can call me anything. As long as it's not late for dinner.

**Lampito:** I suppose we can just stick with God, then. So, God, You, er, is that what You really look like?"

**God:** I am a complex cross-perceptional interplay of multidimensional radiation of divine manifestation. To a human, I don't really 'look' like anything, or anybody, I just take a shape that I think your brain can handle. If you don't like it, I can change.

**Lampito:** No, no, no, it's fine. Quite Old Testament, very traditional. Michaelangelo would've approved. In fact, I'd say You look like Charlton Heston. Only without the firearms, obviously.

**God:** If I'm honest, the robes are a bit of a pain. Nobody can actually wear white and stay clean for more than thirty seconds, no matter what those ludicrous fashion magazines imply. If I wasn't an enormously powerful deity, I'd look like a used duster by now. And don't talk to Me about drafts!

**Lampito (looking slightly discombobulated):** Am I to understand that You, that is, God the Father, is, You know… going… regimental?

_God beams sunnily, and says nothing. _

**Lampito:** Er, right, well, um, sartorial considerations aside, crap, that's just a disturbing thought, I wonder if You might give us an insight into the real God of the Jimiverse.

**God:** The One under the robe?

**Lampito:** Well, in a manner of speaking…

**God (with an innocent smile):** The one inside Charlton?

**Lampito:** I know You're doing that on purpose…

**God:** Well, I guess you could say that, at heart, I'm a family man. And a frustrated engineer, granted, but basically, a family man. I suppose that I just love to be a Dad. Even when my eldest were driving Me crazy. You know how they say that babies learn to smile just in time to save their own lives? Well, fledgling angels learn to pray just in time to save theirs.

**Lampito:** Really?

**God:** Oh, yes, I tell you, I have enough war stories to hold My head up at any play group. The time that Michael decided to have a go with his sword, even though I told him he wasn't big enough to use it properly yet. Of course, he didn't listen, it was SWOOSH! and Madagascar isn't attached to Africa any more. Stop that! I said, stop that at once, that's a dangerous weapon, Michael, not a toy, and he said, Do not fear, Father, I have the heft of it now, then, SWOOSH! and Sicily isn't attached to Italy anymore.

**Lampito:** Oh dear.

**God:** Oh dear, indeed. And Lucifer just couldn't wait to grow up, either. Didn't want to be left behind by his big brother. Decided to try on his battle armour well before he was ready. It's very heavy, I said, wait until you have grown into it, My child, I said, but he was determined. He got his head stuck through an arm hole trying to put on his cuirass. And there was no Fire Brigade to call when one of your kids gets stuck somewhere.

**Lampito:** What did You do?

**God:** Grabbed a handful of butter. He was howling the place down afterwards, of course, and Michael, who wasn't much older, was almost in tears, then along came Raphael, determined to heal his brother, but of course he was youngest of all then, and, having decided to heal Lucifer's ears, which had been scraped on the metal despite the butter, and he ended up changing them into a pair of rabbit ears. Well, if Lucifer had been howling before, he set a new record after that.

**Lampito:** So, your archangels discovered their vocations quite early, then?

**God:** Oh, yes. Lucifer and Michael just loved sparring practice, and Raphael was the terror of the Garden, chasing the insects and animals around and trying to heal them, even after I'd explained that it was normal for a tadpole's tail to drop off when it became a frog. Too late, I'm afraid, he'd already spent an entire afternoon sticking tails back onto them. And Gabriel got hold of his Horn when he was supposed to be practising his harp scales; I'd told him he could have a try with the mouthpiece, to start developing his lip, in the Garden, where the noise wouldn't bother anybody, but he just couldn't wait – he took it into the Throne Room, and gave it a really good honk. Mayhem, I tell you, it was mayhem! Pieces of stained glass raining down of the windows! He was lucky he wasn't cut to pieces. Lucifer had to hang onto him while Michael healed his wings, and Raphael distracted him with a piece of confectionery. Make no mistake about it, parenthood is hard work. Especially when You have both immortal and mortal children, of so many different species.

**Lampito:** If we might move on to a question that has vexed many of Your followers pretty much since following You was invented…

**God:** You're not talking Twitter, here, are you?

**Lampito:** No, I'm talking worship of You. You know, God is great, Blessed are You Lord our God, Our Father Who art in Heaven, Blessed is the Kingdom of The Father The Son and the Holy Spirit. Who's right?

**God:** What do you mean, who's right?

**Lampito:** Well, you've got your Jews, you've got your Muslims, you've got your Christians in three basic flavours – Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant – plus lots of other offshoots, and a lot of them are sure that they are the ones who are believing in You and worshiping you correctly, which is pleasing to You. Some of them get quite strident about it. They get quite cross when anyone suggests that their way is not the correct way. Some of them get so cross, they start killing each other about it. It's being going on, if you'll pardon the expression, since Adam was a boy. We really could save a whole lot of trouble if there was just a definitive statement from You as to who is right. So, who's right?

**God:** Well, they're all right.

**Lampito:** What? That's impossible!

**God:** No it's not.

**Lampito:** Don't you dare go evasively sophist on me, Your Almightyness, if I wanted impenetrable Zen koans I'd have arranged to interview that fat laughing bloke.

**God:** It's true, though. They are all right. They just haven't realized it yet.

**Lampito:** Well, I can report to You that it doesn't look like happening any time soon. In fact, a lot of them will state with great authority that failing to conform to their belief system automatically qualifies a person to go to Hell.

**God:** Well, that's just wrong. Otherwise, the place would be a lot more crowded. And Crowley would have even less hair less than he does.

**Lampito:** So, presumably, there's a bit of, shall we say, _omelette sur le visage_ when some of them get to Heaven?

**God:** Not really. The only entrance criteria, when you get right down to it, is, Be Decent To Each Other. The really hateful ones, well, off Down South they go. And I don't mean your delightful country.

**Lampito:** So, Heaven is like a selective school, then – you can pick and choose the ones who won't vandalise the desks, disrupt the classes or beat up the teachers, and leave the state system to deal with the rest.

**God (grinning):** Off to Principal Crowley they go.

**Lampito:** Speaking of Crowley, do You truly hold out hope that he may, one day, in the extremely distant future, be Redeemed? Actually Redeemed, not just whizzed off Upstairs because of an improbable conjuction of computer-related events? Castiel seems quite sure of it.

**God:** Well, theoretically speaking, many things are possible. You might one day be crowned Miss World, Miss Olympia, or even Miss Manners…

**Lampito:** Don't be insufferably smart.

**God (waggling the Divine Eyebrows):** It's the omniscience gig.

**Lampito:** Well, I'm sure we could spend a very long time discussing the nature of Sin, and Redemption, and who are actually Your Chosen People…

**God:** The Village People. They were great.

**Lampito:** Stop it. What I'm getting at is, I'd like to ask You something that's maybe not so interesting to all the theologians, bible scholars and suicide bombers out there, but is a more ordinary concern. Less intellectually lofty, I admit it, but of more interest to ordinary people.

**God:** Sounds good. Fire away.

**Lampito:** Okay. It's something that modern man has pondered for many years…

**God:** What makes Don King's hair do that?

**Lampito:** Um, no.

**God:** Does Sarah Jessica Parker actually have any horses in her family tree? The teeth, you know.

**Lampito:** No.

**God:** Who is John Galt?

**Lampito:** No!

**God:** Where's the beef?

**Lampito:** Stop it! The actual question is, why is it that everything that tastes good is bad for you? And stuff that's supposed to be good for you, like Brussels sprouts, tastes so blah?

**God:** Not everybody would agree with that. Some people find Brussels sprouts to be extremely tasty. Some people dislike the taste of chocolate. Some people would prefer a meal of brown rice and steamed chicken to fish and chips.

**Lampito:** Yeah, well, the weirdos will always be with us, struggling pathetically against their condition.

**God:** When My Son said that, I believe he was referring to the poor.

**Lampito:** Well, He could equally well have been talking about weirdos. Or Twilight Moms. Or Beliebers. What I'm getting at is, why does eating chocolate, hash browns, fried foods and the sort of things that are often deemed to taste good make humans fat?

**God:** It doesn't.

**Lampito:** Yes it does! Ecce feminae! Behold the woman! You think I got like this chowing down on cottage cheese and celery?

**God:** You didn't get like that from eating those things; you got like that from eating too much of those things. There's a reason Greed is a deadly sin, you know.

**Lampito:** Well, there's something that I've wondered about for quite a long time now: how is it that Dean Winchester seems to live on a diet of double bacon cheeseburgers, fries, greasy breakfasts, beer, snack foods and fried wings, and never even gets heartburn, let alone grows out of his jeans?

**God:** Ah, well, the difference, you see, is that you live in Real Life, and Dean, as you write him, lives in the Jimiverse.

**Lampito:** Are you telling me that living on junk food doesn't make you fat in the Jimiverse?

**God:** Oh, no, I can assure you, eating a diet high in fat and simple carbohydrates and empty calories definitely makes people fat.

**Lampito:** Well? How come he looks more like the Marlboro man, and less like the Michelin Man?

**God:** Well, in the Jimiverse, you know that there are all sorts of creatures that just don't exist in Real Life: sandmen, vampires, werewolves, ghouls, that sort of thing…

**Lampito:** Yes?

**God:** We've also go the Fanservice Fairy.

**Lampito (looking dubiously at God):** The _what_?

**God:** The Fanservice Fairy.

**Lampito:** The Fanservice Fairy.

**God:** That's the bunny.

**Lampito:** There is a little fairy that flutters around, making sure that Dean Winchester stays, well, fanserviceable.

**God:** Well, there's more than one, obviously. A bit like the Sandmen. Only without the bowler hats. I've heard them described as looking a bit like Angelina Jolie, only with wings. And no children. Anyway, they flutter around in the Jimiverse, making sure that all people necessary to the narrative continuum look adequately, as you put it, fanserviceable.

**Lampito:** So, the Winchesters, who are Hunters, who ward wherever they stay every night as tight as a fat stripper's garter, somehow can't keep a little fairy out, and every night one of them comes in and, and, I don't know, waves her magic fanservice wand over Dean and Sam, and…

**God:** No, no, no, the Buff Gnome does Sam.

**Lampito:** The Buff Gnome.

**God:** Yes, that's right. The workload would be too much for one fairy.

**Lampito:** A little gnome who comes in, and waves his magic hat over Sam, thereby allowing a bloke who apparently lives mostly on chicken salad and mung sprouts to look like… that.

**God:** Yes! You are quick on the uptake, I can see why you went into science.

**Lampito:** The Fanservice Fairy. And the Buff Gnome.

**God:** And really good genes.

**Lampito:** That's really fucked up right there.

**God:** I work in mysterious ways, doncha know.

**Lampito:** And I suppose you've got the Exhaust Note Goblin, to make the Impala sound so horny and be able to screech her tyres on gravel, and the Head Injury Sprite that makes it possible for characters to bounce back in about 24 hours from a concussion that would've hospitalized anybody else?

**God:** That's really creepy. Anybody would think you were writing the script…

**Lampito (to camera):** We'll be back after this short break for a word from our sponsors, the DDD&SSS, ready, able and extremely willing to cater to all of your Winchester washing needs.

_Audience applauds. God waves cheerfully. Lampito assumes a pained expression as the picture fades out to ad break._

* * *

If you have any questions you would like put to the Almighty of the Jimiverse, now is the time.

**Crowley:** It's not fair that I got bumped from my Interview just because… Himself showed up!

**Lampito:** Suck it up buttercup. You need to get yourself waved at by the Fanservice Fairy more often.

Reviews are the Questions Powering The Chat Show Of Life*!

*Not Real Life, obviously, Jimiverse life.


	16. Lampito Meets Part II

_Theme music swells, large background sign LAMPITO MEETS… flashes in the background. Audience applauds. Lights come up on set._

**Lampito:** Welcome back, you're watching 'Lampito Meets…' and we are talking to The Man Himself, God, as He exists in the Jimiverse.

_Audience applauds as God waves cheerfully._

**Lampito:** Now, er, God, You've revealed to us that in the Jimiverse, the Winchesters stay looking the way they do, despite what they eat, because of the Fanservice Fairies and the Buff Gnomes.

**God:** That's right, plus the Head Injury Sprites and the Exhaust Note Goblins; you know, I think you might have one of those in your garage.

**Lampito (blinking uncertainly):** Really? Do You think so?

**God:** Well, that would explain the noise that bike makes – I believe you have been heard to describe it as 'The horniest sound in the world'."

**Lampito:** Um, well, yes, I suppose I have…

**God:** This is the bike that, when asked by the mechanic how the aftermarket exhaust system and engine remapping had affected it, you described thus: 'Mate, drop it down one and it pulls like a fifteen year old'."

**Lampito (looking desperately to floor manager for help): **I, er, may have used, um, you know, a certain amount of, er, metaphor…

**God:** And you've also told your husband that, one day, you will work out how to have sex with that bike, and then he will be redundant.

**Lampito:** Um…

**God:** Of course, this is not the first time you've talked to a bike. You talked to your first one, before you'd even paid for it. Or should I say, him? Why don't you tell us a bit about how you came to find Bruce?

**Lampito (smiling in recollection):** Well, Bruce was an elderly Z250, a completely harmless little commuter bike, couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding… Hey! Stop that! Turn off Your omniscience, and stop interviewing me!

**God:** So, your dislike of being asked questions is well documented, could you tell us a bit about why that is?

**Lampito:** Because this is my chat show! You want to ask questions, get Your own!

**God:** Oh, all right. Spoilsport.

**Lampito:** Right. Ahem. So, Fanservice Fairies. What do they eat, and how do we get some?

**God:** I'm afraid that they couldn't survive in Real Life. _He takes a couple of small beings from the voluminous folds of His robe._ So, this is a Fanservice Fairy, and this is a Buff Gnome.

**Lampito:** Oh, they're kind of cute. _She squints at the fairy._ Yes, I definitely see the resemblance to Ms Jolie. But this little guy, the gnome, I'd have to say that he reminds me a bit of a teeny tiny little Richard Simmons! He's even got the hair! _She tickles the gnome under the chin._

**God:** As for 'eating', they are omnivores: they can utilize guilt, self-loathing or angst as their energy source. Are you familiar with the phrase 'Il faut souffrir pour etre belle'?. Ou beau. En ce cas.

**Lampito:** Wow. I always thought that meant starving yourself, spending hours exercising and taking an hour to put your face on in the morning. No wonder Dean looks so pretty. He even looks pretty when he cries.

**God:** If you have to do that to make yourself 'belle', I suggest that you'd be so exhausted and miserable that you'd be absolutely no fun. You'd probably be a lot more attractive to yourself and everybody else, a few kilos heavier, but smiling more often, and having a lot more fun. Don't forget that humans are mortal: life is too short to go without really good cheese.

**Lampito:** Thanks for the pep talk, Coach. Speaking of fun, is it true that You like to play Skeeball?

**God:** Oh, yes, it's addictive! From time to time I like to drop in, and play games like that, according to the rules of terrestrial physics, of course, it's no fun cheating omnipotently. I like golf, too.

**Lampito:** The Almighty plays golf?

**God:** Occasionally. I'm no professional, My handicap is quite substantial. But I enjoy it. My Son enjoys it, too, although I have to say, young Yesh has a higher opinion of His abilities that reality bears out. It's probably because of His humanity. You do have the most amazing capacity to overestimate your own talent at something. I mean, look at 'The X Factor' ,or 'So You Think You Can Do Something Entertaining', or 'This Country's Got Talent'. You don't let the fact that you might be crap at something slow you down.

**Lampito:** So, if you can't do something well, then learn to have fun doing it badly?

**God:** Exactly. Just recognize that you are doing it badly, and don't throw a hissy fit when other people also recognize that you're doing it badly.

**Lampito:** So, does God the Son have difficulty in recognizing his own shortcomings?

**God:** I'm afraid so. We were on Earth on a particularly pleasant course just a couple of weeks ago, for a round, no divine influence on the game, and We were on this dogleg around a water hazard. I hit out along the fairway, but He teed up to drive across the water to the green. 'That's a bit far, Son,' I warned him, but He told me 'Don't worry, Father, I've seen Tiger Woods do this'. Well, it was a good drive, but it fell a bit short – splash! Into the the water. So I took my next shot, and said, "You'll have to take a penalty and drop a ball, Son,' but he replied, 'That's not necessary, Father, I'll just chip out of the water, and I can still make par – I saw Tiger Woods do this'. So I took my last shots, onto the green, and putted, while He was poking into the weeds on the edge of the water. 'You won't find it, Son,' I warned Him, but He kept looking, and assured me 'I can do this, Father, I saw Tiger Woods do this, I just have to find it'. So I was waiting, and He was searching, but He couldn't find it. It fell in too far from the shore, you see. So, He walked out onto the lake, doing the walk on water thing, determined to find His ball. There was a pair coming up behind Us, and it was so embarrassing; I had to tell them to play through, because the Son was still wandering about on the lake, whacking at the water and looking for His ball. It's terribly bad manners to hold up play like that.

**Lampito:** Er, didn't the people playing through get a bit of a shock, seeing Himself walking on the water?

**God:** Well, yes, of course, they stood there dumbfounded, watching the Son, and one of them said 'Who does he think he is, Jesus Christ?'

**Lampito:** Oh dear. What can you say to that?

**God:** Well, What indeed? I had to tell them, 'Well, right now, He thinks He's Tiger Woods'. I was mortified.

**Lampito:** Well, I've never understood the attraction of the game myself, but if it gets people out in the fresh air, it can't be all bad. But if we could move on to some of Your work, can you settle a question for our audience: whom do You love more, men or women?

**God:** Oh, what a ridiculous question! You are ALL My children, and I love you all as much as each other.

**Lampito:** Are you sure? Major sects of Your various brands of followers seem to have this idea that women should be subordinate, submissive, and preferably seen and not heard.

**God:** The men of those religions may believe that – I don't.

**Lampito:** Have You ever considered smiting the occasional bearded hatemonger, arrogant hypocrite in a fabulous frock, or smug misogynist just to show them the error of their ways?

**God:** As tempting as it is, no. They're grown-ups. You're all supposed to be grown-ups. And you've got the whole Free Will thing. Start behaving like grown-ups, and sort it out yourselves. Seriously. You don't have to believe in Me to be a bearded hatemonger, an arrogant hypocrite or a smug misogynist, you know, I don't hold a monopoly on that sort of stupidity.

**Lampito:** What about the men in frocks?

**God:** Drag queens, popes, transgender people, I think they all look fabulous. Especially RuPaul. If you want to look fabulous, and that makes you feel fabulous, I'm just happy to see My children happy.

**Lampito:** You must know that some of Your followers get a bit irritable about That Sort Of Thing, too. You know, men wearing women's clothes…

**God:** Oh, good Me, what you wear doesn't hurt anybody else! Except for Lady Gaga's cigarette sunglasses, perhaps, I hope she never wears those indoors. Passive smoking. But even she only sprains her own ankles on those ridiculous shoes. Next thing, you'll be asking Me about the whole same-sex thing. Clothes, bodies, it's the people inside them that count.

**Lampito:** So, if you say you love everybody equally, I got a word for You, Your Almightyness: dysmenorrhoea.

**God:** I got five words for you: Getting hit in the nuts.

**Lampito:** What about hormonal fluctuation?

**God:** What about male pattern baldness?

**Lampito:** Men can pee standing up!

**God:** Women got the multiple orgasms. And not the unwanted erections.

**Lampito:** Gynaecologists!

**God:** Prostate exams.

**Lampito:** Pregnancy, and childbirth.

**God:** Well, of course women got that; if men were the ones who carried children, the human race would've died out before it even got established.

**Lampito:** So, You love everybody equally?

**God:** Yes.

**Lampito:** Even Kim Kardashian?

**God:** Even Kim Kardashian.

**Lampito:** Even Perez Hilton?

**God:** Yes, even Perez Hilton

**Lampito:** Even Justin Bieber?

**God:** Even Justin Bieber.

**Lampito:** And his Beliebers?

**God:** All his Beliebers.

**Lampito:** What about Twilight Moms?

**God:** Yes, Twilight Moms too.

**Lampito:** Dennis Rodman?

**God:** Yes, almost as much as he loves himself, in fact.

**Lampito:** That Snooki creature?

**God:** And her child.

**Lampito:** Donald Trump?

**God:** See 'Dennis Rodman'.

**Lampito:** Roseanne Barr?

**God:** This is getting silly.

**Lampito:** What about Arnold Horshack?

**God:** He's not real.

**Lampito:** Lori Grimes?

**God:** She's not real either! Which is probably just as well; if she was one of humanity's last hopes, I'd probably write you all off, and consider starting again.

**Lampito:** Joffrey Baratheon?

**God:** HE'S NOT REAL!

**Lampito:** What if he was?

**God:** He's not.

**Lampito:** But what if he was?

**God:** Oh, Me, give Me patience… All right, if Joffrey was a real person, I would love him, right up until he started to enjoy abusing his position of privilege to hurt others, and orchestrating murders.

**Lampito:** So, until he was about six, then.

**God:** I'd estimate five and a few months.

**Lampito:** What about Crowley?

**God:** I hold out quiet hope for young Fergus. After all, if Lucifer can start to reform himself, who is to say that demons may not one day find Redemption?

**Lampito:** He tried Redemption once in the Jimiverse – he didn't seem to like it very much.

**God:** Which was a pity, really, because it seems that everybody else found it enormously amusing.

**Lampito:** Well, let's move on to another aspect of Your work. Black and white animals.

**God:** What about them?

**Lampito:** Yes, exactly. Zebras, and pandas. Why black and white? When everything else is in glorious Technicolor?

**God:** Two words for you: evolution, and Gabriel.

**Lampito:** What, both at once?

**God:** Look, it just so happens that stripey black and white zebras are less attractive to biting flies, which would otherwise interrupt grazing, and carry diseases, which is a selection pressure to favour them over solid colours.

**Lampito:** What about pandas? How does something so cute but dumb evolve, let alone survive?

**God:** You could ask the same thing about Paris Hilton or Keanu Reeves.

**Lampito**: There aren't any biting flies where pandas live.

**God:** No, but Gabriel was determined to redeem himself after the angler fish debacle. Pleeeeease, Dad, he said, I'll do it properly this time, so I said, all right, go and check on the pandas' progress, here's the spec sheet, it's all there in black and white. So in hindsight, I should probably have phrased that differently.

**Lampito:** Was Gabriel involved in the evolution of Paris Hilton or Keanu Reeves?

**God:** Not that I know about. But he might well have been involved in _Johnny Mnemonic_, or _Nine Lives_, they're the sort of jokes in poor taste that he loves so much…

**Lampito:** Well, it's been an education talking with You, Your Godness, do You have a final message for humanity tonight?

**God:** Just the same one as ever: be good to each other! For now, you are all that you've got, so treat each other decently.

**Lampito:** What do You mean, for now?

**God:** It will be a very long time indeed before you lot meet up with any more of My sentient children, so use the time to practise being civilised to each other, is what I suggest.

**Lampito:** God, Your Almightyness, Eternal Father, Divine Creator, thank You so much for your time.

**God:** It was a pleasure.

_Audience applauds. Lights go down, and credits start to roll._

**God:** Incidentally, I'll have that Buff Gnome back, thank you.

**Lampito:** I just wanted to give him to my husband for a bit!

**God:** No. He'll starve, poor little thing.

**Lampito:** I could make him angsty.

**God:** Just give the gnome back, madam.

**Crowley:** What about my interview?

**Lampito:** Shut up.

_Lampito grumpily hands back the gnome. Credits end. Fade to black._

* * *

I hope none of our Merkin friends are getting washed away - we're getting some scary footage from Colorado Down Here. And I'm starting to get worried; it's been raining quite hard here for more than 24 hours. Much more of this, and I'm going to start googling How To Build Your Own Ark...


	17. The Rainbow Bridge

We haven't had a plot bunny farm escapee for a while, but this one jumped out of a text book. Seriously, one minute I was looking up an equation, the next, this little guy hopped right off the page. I think his name might be Teddy, because he's quite fluffy.

You remember how there was a new litter of puppies at RJ's ninth birthday sleepover party? Well, Teddy has a story about them, and an aspect of the Jimiverse we've already been introduced to. He suggested that we call it...

* * *

**The Rainbow Bridge**

Dean was working patiently in one of Bobby's sheds, trying to coax the transmission he'd just dropped out of an elderly Pontiac into letting go of its bolts without stripping the threads or breaking off, when RJ came running in, bellowing as nine-year-olds are wont to do.

"Daaaaaaaad!" he shouted.

"I'm right here, kiddo," Dean shouted back, "Where's the fire?"

"There's no fire," RJ told him, "Grandpa Bobby said to come and tell you there's a guy who wants to see you."

Dean paused; he hadn't heard a vehicle pull into the yard, and he hadn't heard any of the dogs bark. Rosie's litter, ready to choose their Hunters, went absolutely nuts whenever somebody showed up, which could make for bedlam, since there were nine of them, and at least half of them could do the walk-right-through-solid-objects trick already.

"Yeah?" Dean wiped his hands on a shop rag, "What sort of guy?"

RJ considered the question. "A big guy," he answered finally, before running back towards the house. "And he's dressed funny!" He yelled back over his shoulder, content in the knowledge that his job was done.

Puzzled, Dean followed him.

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

He recognised the guy immediately. Well, he'd never actually met him, true, but he recognised him. It was kind of difficult not to. RJ was right – he was dressed funny. He would've fit right in at one of those cosplay conventions where you could see everything from scrawny bespotted Supermen to Princess Leias who looked more like they really should've left the gold bikini behind and dressed up as one of the Hutts.

And he _was_ big. Hell, he made Sam look like the lanky teen his baby brother had been when he'd reached his full height, but hadn't filled out.

"Dean," Bobby began in a voice full of carefully throttled back amusement, "This is Mr Odinsson, and he'd like to talk to you."

"Dean Winchester!" The blonde man leaped up from the sofa, where he had been in conversation with Sam, and strode across the room to grasp Dean's forearm. "I am honoured to meet you!"

"Er, yeah," Dean gazed up at the earnest face, "Likewise, I guess. Um." He was getting the distinct impression that the guy was nervous about something.

"Mr Odinsson would like to talk to you about maybe adoptin' one o' Rosie's litter," Bobby prompted, nodding encouragingly to the visitor. "Seein' as they're ready to Choose."

The guy nodded a bit hesitantly. "Mr Singer – Bobby – and your brother have been explaining to me how the dogs of this line choose their Hunters," he said, "And I would..." he fidgeted a bit, "I would like your permission to see if one of them would like to choose me."

Dean blinked in bemusement. "You?" he managed eventually. "You... you want one of them to pick you?"

"If one will," their visitor continued, more eagerly. "My family have had dogs for, well, forever, I suppose," he said, "I grew up with them. My mother complained that my father was letting them raise me more than he was, and he just laughed, because his own companions rarely leave his side... I have hunted with them, not the way you have, but there will be work for such a dog, keeping my home safe..."

"But... why do you want one of these ones?" Dean asked. "They have a, uh, kind of special pedigree..."

The blonde man smiled widely. "I am familiar with the traits of the dogs descended from Jimi Senior, the Hellhound who became a Hunter's Dog," he said cheerfully, "I have met some of them, and found them to be wonderful companions. I am much taken with them. And... I would like one for a companion of my own. If one will choose me," he added, a little wistfully.

"If there's a pup for him, it'll choose him," Sam pointed out, "Same as anybody else."

"Sam," Dean said levelly, "He's not exactly 'anybody else'."

"Please," asked the visitor in a small voice, his face looking as plaintive as one of Sam's double barrelled Puppy Dog Eyes expressions. _How the hell do they do that,_ Dean wondered, _How do guys that big managed to look like five-year-olds who are about to cry?_

"My suggestion," Bobby cut in, "Is that you go and meet the pups, and see what happens." He turned a stern eye onto the would-be adopter. "You gotta remember," he reminded him, "Most people who come to meet these pups don't get chosen. They'll pick who they're supposed to be with. If you get picked, you'll know it, but if you don't, that's an end to it."

"I understand," the man said solemnly.

With a bemused smile, Dean shook his head. "Just when I think I've seen it all," he muttered. "Well, RJ, why don't you show... Mr Odinsson the way to the puppy pen, and we'll see if there's one who wants to adopt him."

"This way!' chirped RJ, heading for the door, the blonde giant striding eagerly after him.

Sam was hot on their heels. "This I gotta see," he grinned.

"Me too," said Bobby, scuttling after them.

"Me three, I guess," sighed Dean, bringing up the rear.

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

At just on eight weeks of age, Rosie's puppies, the last litter that Lemmy had sired, were ready to leave their dam's den. They came running and tumbling towards the humans, nine little bundles of Rottweiler-shaped mayhem yipping in excitement. Xena, who had already Chosen Dean, came charging through the fence of the pen, and he scooped her up, thankful that the pangs of grief he'd felt every time he saw how much she resembled her sire were dampening into happy recollection.

RJ opened the gate and let the would-be Alpha in. They both hunkered down, and a maelstrom of puppy excitement swirled around them. The visitor laughed with delight.

"I watched them being born," RJ told him proudly, "And Dad let me name 'em. That's Xena, she Chose Dad, but she still likes to play with her brothers and sisters. That's Ares," he pointed out the one pup that was not joining in the shenaningans, "He keeps trying to head west – Grandpa Bobby thinks he wants to Choose Auntie Ronnie, but she's not ready yet. And that's Zeus. I think he wants to Choose Uncle Sammy," the boy confided conspiratorially, "But he's not ready yet, either. He still really misses Lars. And that's Odin, and that's Athena, and that's Kali, and that's Anubis..."

"He's been reading Grandpa Bobby's books," Sam noted by way of explanation.

"And who is this?" asked the smiling man, indicating the pup who pushed his way through the pack to climb up RJ's shirt and lick the boy's nose.

"This is my dog," RJ grinned, rassling with the pup, "He Chose me after my birthday."

"And what is his name?" enquired their visitor.

RJ told him. He laughed hugely.

"Come on out of there, RJ," instructed Bobby, watching carefully, "You let 'em decide what's what."

RJ picked up his pup, and withdrew from the pen, leaving the crouching man laughing and rassling with the litter while their mother watched on indulgently.

Except for Ares, who watched the proceedings with detachment, the puppies yipped and tumbled and rassled, excited by the novelty of a new person to play with. Zeus was first to lose interest, wandering off to sniff at some interesting bug, and gradually the others paired off to play with each other, stalk the chew toys littering the pen, or head back to flop down next to their dam.

The look of disappointment on the man's face was eloquent.

"Sorry, dude," Dean shrugged regretfully. "Most of the Hunters who come see the pups go away alone. I guess there just isn't one for you here."

"Ah, well," he said with a sad smile, "I thank you for your time, Dean Winchester. Maybe another time, there may be..."

A small, muffled but insistent yap sounded behind him. He turned to see a small male, stumbling along awkwardly, dragging a very large and well chewed orange plastic hammer in his mouth. He butted insistently against the man's leg with the toy. They guy stared at him.

"Oh, you gotta be kidding me," groaned Dean.

With a hesitant smile, the man bent down to pat the small puppy. The animal dropped the toy, licked his hand, then barked in excitement.

Sam burst out laughing. "Don't just stand there!" he urged, "He wants you to throw the hammer!"

With a look of blossoming joy on his face, the man bent down to pick it up, then tossed the toy across the pen. The puppy set off after it, and began to drag it determinedly back for another throw.

"Heh heh," Bobby chortled, "I'd say that's about as loud and clear as he could make it."

After several more throws, the pup attempted to climb the man's strange leather vest, and he picked the puppy up, beaming with happiness.

"What is this one's name?" he asked eagerly.

RJ told him.

He laughed even harder.

He thanked them effusively, the puppy settling into his arms and attempting to chew on the braids in his hair, and took his leave.

"Well, that certainly aint the sort o' thing you see every day," Bobby took off his hat and scratched his head. "Still, it's always a pleasure to see a pup find its Alpha."

"Well, Cas has said that he's a real dog person," Dean shrugged.

"He'll have plenty of other dogs for company, too," Sam said, "He'll never be lonely."

"Well, if you ladies will excuse me," Bobby humphed, "I gotta get back to my transcription, if you wanna give me a hand, Sam, I'd app... uh-oh."

"What?" Dean's eyes followed Bobby's line of sight to the pen; out of habit he did a quick head count. "Oh, crap," he muttered, "That little asshole has taken off again."

"He won't have gone far," Bobby reassured him, "We'll just let the youngsters do the runnin', and get him back. RJ!" he called.

"What is it, Grandpa Bobby?" RJ broke of his game with his pup, and came running.

"Ares has headed off again. You know where he'll be goin'. Be a good boy, take Thor, and fetch him home."

**...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... ...****oooooOOOOOooooo****... **

Gabriel landed in the snow outside Valhalla after sunrise, and pushed open the huge doors. Usually he'd go and see Freya first, so that she didn't give him an earful about not visiting often enough, but his brother had sent a message just oozing excitement, saying that he had something wonderful to show him.

"Thor!" he yelled, as he stomped the snow off his boots, "Thor! I'm here! What's so important that..."

A small black streak shot across the room, yapped at him, and started to worry at his boot.

"Hey!" he bent down to swipe at the animal – it was a puppy, he realised – which dodged nimbly out of the way, gave his hand a quick nip, then shot off under a table.

"Loki!" he heard his Aesir brother bellow. "Loki! Where are you?"

"I'm here!" Gabriel shouted back as Thor came striding down the stairs, "I just got here!"

"Not you," Thor said dismissively, bending to look under tables as he crossed the hall, "I'm looking for... aha!" With a small exclamation of triumph, he knelt down and whistled to the puppy, who yipped happily and came galumphing towards him.

"Good, you grabbed it," said Gabriel, as the pup climbed against Thor's leg and nibbled on the bindings of Mjolnir. "The little asshole tried to chew on my boot, then bit me!"

"He barely nipped you," Thor defended, "He's too little to bite yet. Aren't you?" The pup grinned at him. "Though he will learn, if his ancestors are anything to judge by."

"That's... that's yours?" Gabriel asked incredulously.

"Loki," Thor grinned hugely, "Meet Loki."

Gabriel's mouth dropped open.

"You named your dog after me?" demanded the adopted angel Aesir. "You didn't! Tell me you didn't name your dog after me!"

"I didn't name my dog after you," Thor said equably. "Dean Winchester's son had already named him. Hadn't he, Loki?" The puppy wiggled, and yipped, as Thor gently disengaged him from his attack on the hammer.

Gabriel stared. "That's... that's one of Jimi's descendants?" He peered at the pup. "He's kinda small."

"He will grow," Thor beamed, "I enjoy Jimi's visits so much, he is such a wonderful companion. I have longed for a dog like him."

"Does Dad know you've adopted a little critter from Midgard?" asked Gabriel.

"He thinks he's wonderful," replied Thor, "And his wolves Geri and Freki are very fond of him already. Besides," he grinned, "Father adopted a 'little critter' from another realm once, and he turned out all right."

"A little critter?" Gabriel put as much affront into his voice as he could, "A little critter? Who turned out 'all right'?"

"Mostly satisfactory," shrugged Thor, still grinning. "Would you like to hold him?" He pushed the pup into Gabriel's arms.

"Stop tasting me!" protested Loki the adopted angel as Loki the adopted puppy kissed him lavishly.

"He likes you!" laughed Thor.

"I am not at all comfortable about being tasted by something with Hellhound heritage," protested Gabriel, "And don't expect me to go chasing this particular Winchester dog all over the Nine Realms if he gets itchy feet and decides to go visiting, I had enough of that with Jimi Senior... aieeee!" he thrust the pup back at Thor, and slapped at the smouldering spot on his chest. "He peed on me!" He glared at the pup accusingly. "You peed on me, and set me on fire!"

"He just gets very excited," Thor explained, "Come, we will take him outside."

It was a fine, clear day. Little Loki adored the snow, romping and diving into drifts and chomping at interesting looking sticks, pausing to mark his territory before scampering off again.

"He is kind of cute," grinned Gabriel. Watching his brother's happy expression, he was struck by a sudden pang of worry. "He's technically mortal, though," he noted, "Jimi's descendants are, you know. What will happen when..."

"Mr Bobby Singer suspects that here in Asgard, he will live, as long as this realm, and we, endure," Thor told him. "He will never have to Wait for me. I will always be here for him."

The puppy suddenly broke off his exploring as the sun caught the shimmering colours of the Bifrost, the ethereal cold flame of the bridge connecting Asgard to other realms. The spectral colours danced and rippled in the light, and Loki stared, entranced. Then he began to bark excitedly at it.

"Perhaps when you are older," Thor smiled down at the pup, "There will be exploring to do, and fighting too. You will cross the Bifrost with me, but for now, let us wait for you to grow."

"He's one lucky dog," Gabriel grinned, "When he and his Alpha cross the Rainbow Bridge together, they'll always come home again afterwards."

"Inside!" Thor roared happily, "Inside, Loki! Come, it is time for breakfast!"

Gabriel wasn't sure exactly which Loki he was talking to, but both of them followed him eagerly.


End file.
